Guitar wizard Laurence Juber to release ‘The Fab 4th’ on March 27, 2020; upcoming album marks his fourth Beatles-inspired Solo Album
Los Angeles, February 26, 2020: The Fab 4th, out March 27, 2020 on Hologram Recordings, is an album of songs by The Beatles, arranged and performed on solo guitar by Laurence Juber. Known to his fans as LJ, his playing fuses folk, jazz, blues, pop and classical styles, creating a multi-faceted performance that belies the use of only one instrument.
First internationally recognized as lead guitarist in Paul McCartney's Wings, with whom he won a Grammy®, Juber has since established himself as world-renowned guitar virtuoso and entertainer.
This is his fourth Beatles-inspired solo guitar recording. The first of the series, LJ Plays The Beatles, was voted one of Acoustic Guitar Magazine's all-time Top Ten albums.
Says LJ, “When I started playing guitar in November 1963, the radio airwaves were humming with twangy guitars and (as the critics were fond of saying) ‘adenoidal’ vocals. The Beatles’ second UK album, With The Beatles, was a week away from release and Abbey Road was six years in the future.
That period frames my musical adolescence. The Fabs weren’t alone in my playlist. The Stones, Beach Boys, Cream, Hendrix, Dylan………….
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| Laurence Juber performing at the NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA, in January 2020. Photo: Robert Kinsler |
The pace of musical change in the 60’s was rapid. 1965, the year I turned 13, was remarkable for its nexus of musical styles, when folk, rock, blues, pop, R&B and classical began to merge.
That was the musical milieu that fueled my own obsession with six strings: the siren song of wailing electric lead guitar, intricate fingerpicking acoustic, Bach, Dowland, Django and much more. That was when I set my goal to be a session musician in London.
A little more than a decade later, that studio springboard would land me the gig as Paul McCartney’s lead guitarist in Wings.
Subsequently, recording with Ringo Starr and George Harrison help to cement my status as ’Beatles-adjacent.’ I relaunched my studio career in Los Angeles as a guitarist, composer and producer, while raising a family, and releasing a series of well-received solo fingerstyle guitar recordings.
My wife Hope first suggested the idea of an album of solo arrangements of Beatles tunes more than twenty years ago. I was reluctant at first, considering myself primarily a composer, not an arranger. But, then I figured that as she listens to me play for so many hours a day, it was only fair to devote a portion of that time to these tunes.
In return, she took on the role of producer.
As the arranging unfolded, I found myself ever-more deeply drawn, both as a guitarist and a musician, to the depth and dimension of their creativity. Stripping the songs down to their musical essentials exposes their uniquely nuanced musicality, while seeking the complementary guitaristic space, is an exercise in my own creativity.
Little did I realize at the time, that LJ Plays The Beatles, would become the first of an evolving series, with a volume two, a volume 3 (LJ Can’t Stop Playing The Beatles) and, at Paul McCartney’s instigation, One Wing.
Hope’s idea for a title, The Fab 4th, was the call to action once more.
There are almost 200 original Beatles compositions. Not all translate well to the fingerboard, although there have been some serendipitous moments, when an unlikely candidate revealed itself as a cool arrangement.
This collection includes favorites that I missed on the previous albums, along with some under-appreciated songs, and a few guitaristic challenges. There are many that haven’t yet made the cut, and I’m not sure that I’ll tackle any more, but that’s what I’ve said before……”
MORE ABOUT LJ
LJ’s solo arrangement and recording of The Pink Panther Theme earned him a second Grammy®, while his arrangement of Stand By Me was heard nationally in a Diamonds Are Forever commercial. Juber’s DVD-Audio project Guitar Noir (AIX Records) won a CES Demmy award for best surround-sound audio.
His 'photo memoir' Guitar With Wings is published by Dalton Watson Fine Books.
His folios of guitar music and history are available from Hal Leonard.
As a studio musician, he can be heard on recordings from artists as diverse as Harry Styles, Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks, Seal and the French chanteuse Sylvie Vartin, plus he has been featured on the soundtracks to hundreds of TV shows such as Home Improvement and movies, including the academy award-winning Dirty Dancing, Good Will Hunting and Pocahontas.
Juber co-composed the soundtrack of the award-winning video game Diablo III and scored the NBC Dateline documentary Children Of The Harvest. His music is also featured in the Ken Burns’ documentary The Tenth Inning.
“A stunning sense of space and fluidity…a truly wondrous sound” - Guitar World
"Uniformly exquisite and dazzingly executed” - L.A.Times
“Juber scores high marks for the clarion precision of his playing and
for his tasteful arrangements” - Downbeat
“A Master!“- Pete Townshend, The Who
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