Peter Lang

Fingerstyle guitarist Peter Lang counted among the numerous discoveries and followers of trailblazer John Fahey, whose Takoma imprint put out the cult-classic debut LP The Thing at the Nursery Room Window in 1973. Minnesota served as Lang's birthplace and childhood home. While still in middle school, a friend took him to a Minneapolis coffeehouse gig by the folk-revival trio Koerner, Ray & Glover. Dave Ray's picking approach left the deepest mark on Lang's own technique, and exposure to fellow Minnesota icon Bob Dylan further guided him backward from contemporary folk to the prewar country and blues foundations of American music. His technical precision, melodic inventiveness, and deep command of the blues eventually drew the notice of American Primitive figurehead Fahey, who released The Thing at the Nursery Room Window on Takoma in 1973. The following year the same label issued a compilation that spotlighted Fahey alongside Lang and fellow fingerstyle master Leo Kottke. Lang's subsequent album, the Grammy-nominated Lycurgus, appeared on the Flying Fish label in 1975, with the Waterhouse-issued Back to the Wall arriving two years afterward. Commercial success remained out of reach, however, and after completing a six-week East Coast tour still $600 in debt he consented to abandon live performance in favor of reliable work. Beyond collaborating on the 1982 volume 20th Century Masters of Finger-Style Guitar with John Stropes, Lang remained removed from the music business for nearly twenty years, employed instead in film and animation until 1999, when he resumed activity that produced the 2001 return album Dharma Blues on his own Horus imprint. Its successor, Guitar, reached stores in 2004.