Michael Gulezian

Despite lacking the widespread recognition his abilities warrant, the Armenian-American folk-rock instrumentalist Michael Gulezian belongs to the acoustic guitar lineage shaped by John Fahey, Leo Kottke, and Robbie Basho. Those players shaped his approach, and his recordings frequently convey a spiritual, dreamy, and airy atmosphere while occasionally reflecting his engagement with the modal traditions of India and the Middle East. Born in 1957, he began playing acoustic guitar at age six. His father, an oud player deeply familiar with Armenian and Middle Eastern idioms, fostered his broad musical curiosity; the oud itself is a traditional Arabic lute long employed across the Middle East and North Africa. Raised in Colorado, Gulezian absorbed diverse sounds, mastering Armenian and Middle Eastern forms through his father while also embracing rock, folk, soul, blues, and Indian classical music, particularly the work of sitar master Ravi Shankar. Elements of ragas and Indian classical music surface in his playing, alongside a clear debt to acoustic Mississippi country blues figures such as Robert Johnson, Son House, and the Rev. Gary Davis.

Gulezian encountered Fahey’s recordings while still a pre-adolescent and soon developed comparable familiarity with Kottke and Basho. During his senior year of high school he met Basho at a concert in Pueblo, Colorado; after performing one of his own pieces for the guitarist, he received encouragement to submit a demo to Fahey’s Takoma Records. Fahey responded with similar enthusiasm, affirming Gulezian’s promise. In 1979 he issued his debut album, Snow, on his own Aardvark Records. Fahey subsequently elected to reissue the material on Takoma after adding two tracks and removing three, resulting in the 1979 release Unspoken Intentions. Following Takoma’s bankruptcy in 1985, Gulezian stepped away from recording and enrolled in college, earning a marketing degree from the University of Arizona in 1990. In the early 1990s he resumed recording and founded Timbreline Music, which issued Distant Memories & Dreams in 1992. Subsequent Timbreline releases included The Dare of an Angel in 1994 and Language of the Flame in 2001. In 2002 Fantasy, now owner of the Takoma catalog, brought Unspoken Intentions back into print on CD.