Al Petteway

Fingerstyle acoustic guitarist Al Petteway first joined bands in the early 1970s. By the point he began issuing solo recordings during the 1990s, he had already developed a distinctive technique that merged Celtic tunings and melodic turns with American subject matter. Exposure to the British Invasion sparked his interest in music while still a child, and at age eleven he performed in multiple rock and folk groups around Washington, D.C., rotating among guitar, drums, and bass. College enrollment in 1969 expanded his range further when he joined the Old Dominion University Madrigal Singers, the institution’s jazz and symphonic ensembles, and the Norfolk Ballet Orchestra. Music receded temporarily in the late 1970s after he took the post of supervisor of picture editing at the National Geographic Society, yet he later partnered with mandolinist Akira Otsuka for regular appearances at the celebrated folk venue the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia. Performing under the name Grazz Matazz, the pair released the well-received album Delinquent Minor, which included guest contributions from Béla Fleck, Jethro Burns, and Mike Auldridge and earned a Washington Area Music Association Wammie for Best Album of 1985. Shortly afterward Petteway assembled the Al Petteway Quartet, an all-acoustic instrumental trio featuring himself, Otsuka, and Mary-Chapin Carpenter guitarist John Jennings; the group produced Whispering Stones and The Waters and the Wild among its projects. Additional Petteway titles followed across the decade and into the next century, among them 1995’s Midsummer Moon, 1997’s Caledon Wood, and two 2000 collaborations with his wife Amy White titled Racing Hearts and Groovemasters, Vol. 3: Gratitude. Beyond his own catalog he has contributed to sessions by Cheryl Wheeler, Jonathan Edwards, the Smith Sisters, Debi Smith, Grace Griffith, Susan Graham White, Maggie Sansone, and Bonnie Rideout.