Amos Garrett
Revered as one of the top guitar players in Alberta and two-time Juno Award winner, the reputation Amos Garrett has spent over four decades building spans beyond the geography of the Prairies, reaching into the U.S. and overseas. Known world-wide as a jazz and blues cat, Garrett’s eclectic style of playing has allowed him to transcend beyond those genres that lie closest to his heart, rooted in childhood, into country-rock, pop and folk.
“My first break and ticket to the U.S. was courtesy of Ian and Sylvia Tyson,” says Garrett. The Tysons went to work with Garrett, taking their new band, Great Speckled Bird, and their new sound, hard-hitting country-rock, off to Nashville to record and spend the next two years touring.
During this time, Garrett was rapidly developing his own technique: a method of bending more than one string at a time, which he teaches to students and through online lessons to this day. This innovation gave Garrett the ability to sound like a pedal-steel guitarist at times, while remaining rooted as a jazz player.
You can put on a disc with a dozen world-renowned studio guys and pick his solos out no problem. Totally unique,” remarks contemporary Calgary bluesman, Tim Williams.
Garrett had become a skilled guitar player, one who could be picked up as a hired gun by any type of band and hold the music up. He spent the next number of years moving up through the guitar ranks and contributing his legacy to music history. He teamed up with folk artists Geoff and Maria Muldaur, played guitar in virtuoso harmonica player Paul Butterfield’s band Better Days, later on reunited with a now-divorced Maria Muldaur as her guitar player and band leader and, finally, made the decision to part with Muldaur some ten years later to go out on his own. Garrett was the player who performed the famed guitar solo in Maria Muldaur’s 1974 hit, “Midnight at the Oasis.”
Amos Garrett has enjoyed a full life-spanning career both on his own as well as sharing the stage with other renowned artists such as Stevie Wonder, Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt and Anne Murray (with whom he recorded her first five albums). Over the years, Garrett has recorded with over 150 artists.
Garrett, who relocated to Alberta in 1989, keeps busy with three bands: his acoustic act, blues band and jazz trio. The Amos Garrett Jazz Trio is the band Garrett is the busiest with, gigging on a regular basis and looking forward to recording over the next few months. Garrett’s latest recording, “Get Way Back” (2008), delves this guitarist/vocalist back into the blues as a tribute to the late Percy Mayfield. It received rave reviews from the finest in the music business.
