I have always been a sucker for good guitar work. Even if I
\nwasn’t particularly fond of a song, if it had a guitar line that
\nwas well-played, I’d lock in on the radio and listen to it.
\nEspecially pleasing to my ears is good classical, Spanish or
\nFlamenco guitar work. Having taken classical guitar lessons in
\ncollege, I now watch some of these players master their instrument,
\nand it both moves and frustrates me to tears. (It surprises me,
\nthen, that I have yet to add anything from the likes of Andres
\nSegovia to the Pierce Archives – I just don’t find myself in the
\nclassical aisles of Best Buy that much these days.)<\/p>\n
Add Luis Villegas to the list of guitarists, then, that I would
\ngo out of my way to listen to and watch. Listening to his
\nrecently-released disc
\nCafe Ol\u00e9<\/i>, I can imagine his lightning-fast fret work
\non his nylon-string – and, frankly, I’m envious.<\/p>\n
Assembling a crack team of bandmates to bring a Latin swing to
\nthe music (including drummer Gregg Bissonette, who’s best known for
\nhis work with David Lee Roth and Joe Satriani), Villegas plows
\nthrough thirteen songs that are guaranteed to make you groove in
\nsome way, shape or form. Centered around his lead lines (and
\noccasionally a vocal provided by rhythm guitarist Roger Espinoza),
\nthis music challenges you not to want to get up and dance.<\/p>\n
From the opening moments of “Baby Elephants,” Villegas and crew
\ncapture your attention with their own mixture of Spanish and
\nFlamenco works, with just a splash of American flashiness in the
\nplaying. When Villegas runs the length of the fretboards on some of
\nhis solos, it sounds like he would be just as comfortable holding a
\nLes Paul. But Villegas never sounds like he’s trying to be flashy,
\nnor does he forget the roots of his playing, as heard on the
\nrapidly-picked notes on “Spider Hugs”.<\/p>\n
Throughout
\nCafe Ol\u00e9<\/i>, I didn’t hear a single piece that seemed to
\nbe lacking, or that didn’t capture my interest and attention along
\nthe way. Tracks like “Don Quixote” and “S.O.B. (South O’ The
\nBorder)” highlight how musically tight this group is, and even the
\naddition of vocals to “Chiquilla” and “Mas y Mas” just serves to
\nmake the sound that much richer. Especially interesting is the way
\nVillegas and Espinoza trade lead and harmony rhythms on the title
\ntrack – remarkable!<\/p>\n
Of course, many people who aren’t familiar with this style of
\nmusic might not be willing to give an album like
\nCafe Ol\u00e9<\/i> a fair shot in the CD changer. And that,
\nkids, is a shame; anyone who appreciates the fretboard pyrotechnics
\nof a player like Eddie Van Halen would surely find something
\nspecial in Villegas’s performances as well. True, he’s not as
\nconcerned about playing two thousand notes in a solo. No, his solos
\nare more rhythmically oriented, and help to bring out the natural
\nbeauty of his compositions – they just happen to have some of the
\nflash that the heavy metal generation would approve of.<\/p>\n
\nCafe Ol\u00e9<\/i> is one of those albums that, if given a fair
\nshot by the mass market, would aesthetically be pleasing to fans of
\nmany musical genres. Villegas and his band easily prove that they
\nhave the talent worthy of stardom. Now, all they need is the chance
\nto win you over – and, believe me, they’ve earned it with this
\ndisc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6017],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-36066","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-luis-villegas","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36066"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36066"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}