In June 1988, GARY LUCAS ("The Thinking Man's Guitar Hero...an A-list musician", The New Yorker) mounted his first solo show at the Knitting Factory club NYC—and was an instant hit.

Despite being left out of the club's regular ad schedule in the local papers, word of mouth that "Beefheart's guitarist" would make a solo appearance in NYC insured a sell-out performance, and multiple encores.

A month later Gary returned to the Knitting Factory to play their "What is Jazz?" Festival.

This time the New York Times was out in full force, and gave Gary a rave review with the headline "Guitarist of 1000 Ideas".

On the strength of strong audience response and great critical notices, in the fall of 1988, Gary was invited to play solo at the Berlin Jazzfest.

Noticing that his concert coincided with the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass"—so named because many Jewish shops and homes were smashed to bits that night, signalling open season on Jewish people in Germany), Gary stunned the packed house by ending his evening performance with a spontaneous composition entitled "Verklarte Kristallnact"—a play on Schoenberg's famous composition "Verklarte Nacht"—which went out over national German radio WDR.

The next day the Berlin Morgenpost ran a rave review of his concert with the headline "Es is Lucas!" (It is Lucas!)

Armed with a fist full of rave reviews, Gary Lucas thus begin regularly performing all across Europe and eventually all over the world in the solo format—essentially a one-man band.

This is the full monte of Gary Lucas solo ("one of the best and most original guitarists in America"—Rolling Stone)—a cross-genre sonic tour de force, encompassing the entire spectrum of the legendary guitarist's 30 year career in music—including twisted originals from the Grammy-nominated songwriter spanning his 20 plus album releases...

the deepest darkest blues...

and covers of everything from 30's Chinese pop to Jewish children's to compositions by Wagner, Nino Rota, Sun Ra, and Dvorak!

Press raves for Gary Lucas solo here.

Read a rave review and view a live clip from Gary's recent electric/acoustic solo performance in the Czech Republic. 

"Without a doubt, the most innovative and challenging guitarist playing today" —fRoots (UK)

"Legendary left-field guitarist" —The Guardian (UK)

"One of the five best guitarists in the world" —Lidove Noviny (Czech Republic national newspaper)

Video clips of Gary Lucas performing at Music Matrix in Amsterdam:
Chinese Pop Medley |  Level The Playing Field/Tangled Up In Blue/Soweto Is Where It's At/Perefere |  I'm So Glad/Hugh's Graveyard Stomp/Poison Tree | Theme From "Sex and Lucia" | Rolling Stones "Last Time" | Dance of Destiny | Aksar/Hot and Cold Everything | The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao |  Our Love is Here to Stay

Video of Gary's performance at the Jazz Cafe, London in Oct. 2009:
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

Review of Gary Lucas solo show live at the London Jazz Cafe 10/03/09 here

Clip of Gary Lucas solo on the main stage at the Rochefort Festival France 8/28/09 here

Check out clips of Gary performing 4 songs live on Brazil's supercool Pop Loaded music website—including "Rise Up to Be",  "Bra Jo from Kilimanjaro", "Fata Morgana", and "One Man's Meat/Swamp T'ing".

GARY LUCAS LIVE AT THE CONCERTEGEBOUW, AMSTERDAM







A typical Gary Lucas solo concert is anything but typical...it's a veritable crash-course in the history of both popular and little-known music as Gary crosses genres, decades, and boundaries with ease to unearth little-known gems and make musical connections few other performers would dream of—always an unpredictable mix of his own original songs sung by Mr. Lucas (a Grammy-nominated songwriter), Gary's celebrated arrangements of Chinese pop from the 1930's and music by Albert Ayler, Sun Ra and Richard Wagner, luscious film themes by Bernard Herrmann, Alberto Iglesias, and Nino Rota—and of course, blues, blues, and more blues, by Captain Beefheart, Blind Blake, Skip James and Howling Wolf—expertly performed on Gary's 1926 National steel, 1946 Gibson J-45, and 1966 Fender Stratocaster.

To date he has performed solo in 35 countries around the world, where his use of electronic effects, which grew from one digital delay to 5, coupled with his use of other various black boxes, enables Gary to loop his guitar lines and improvise with himself.

Even when Gary performs solo acoustic, his amazing fingerpicking skills create contrapuntal guitar lines in which melodies meld with rhythm strumming and plucked bass lines which approximate the sound of multiple guitars being played in real time. His fingerpicking ability goes back to his time spent playing with Captain Beefheart, where he made one guitar sound like several on his solo tour de forces "Flavor Bud Living" and "Evening Bell".



Even the great critic Lester Bangs was fooled when he first heard Gary's recording of Beefheart's composition "Flavor Bud Living" from the 1980 album "Doc at the Radar Station", asking him: "Which guitar did you play, Gary—the top or the bottom?" "Lester", Gary replied, "that was all me!!"

"Brilliant fingerpicking skills—a technical whiz with faster than light fingers" —The Japan Times

Grab the opportunity to catch Gary Lucas playing solo—

you will never hear guitar played like this again...

Read 20 years of rave reviews for Gary's solo live concerts

Check out rave reviews for 2 classic solo albums:

"Skeleton at the Feast"

and the solo acoustic album "Evangeline"

Gary performing 4 songs live on Brazil's supercool Pop Loaded music website:

"Rise Up to Be"


"Bra Jo from Kilimanjaro"


"Fata Morgana"


"One Man's Meat/Swamp T'ing"


Some Youtube clips of Gary Lucas playing solo live in Russia, from the "Russian Fireworks—Gary Lucas live in St. Petersburg " DVD, available to purchase in our merchandise section:

part 1

part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8

YouTube clips of Gary Lucas performing live solo acoustic in Bilbao Spain, from Esec TV:

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

YouTube clips of Gary Lucas playing live solo acoustic in London at The Spitz:
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 | part 12