rip davy graham
To many American listeners Mr. Graham’s best-known piece of music is “Anji,” a guitar solo that Paul Simon performed on Simon and Garfunkel’s 1966 album “Sounds of Silence.” But Mr. Graham’s blend of Celtic music with blues, jazz, spiky syncopations and Eastern modes — he called it folk-Baroque — has been widely influential since the early 1960s, particularly with musicians who sought to revitalize and extend British folk traditions. Among them were Pentangle, Fairport Convention, John Martyn, Martin Carthy and the guitarist Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.

Mr. Graham popularized what guitarists call the DADGAD tuning, named for the notes on the six strings from lowest to highest; the standard tuning is EADGBE. The DADGAD tuning, introduced on recordings by Mr. Graham’s 1962 version of the traditional song “She Moved Through the Fair,” facilitates modal chords with the resonance of open strings. It has been used widely in traditionalist music as well as in rock by Led Zeppelin and others.


- bill 12-19-2008 1:00 pm




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