Craig Ventresco - Past Is Yet to Come (CD)

Acoustic guitarist Craig Ventresco's style is a unique combination of ragtime, rural blues, early jazz guitar and traditional string band influences. His playing is at once fiery, melodic and inventive. Ventresco's tastes are unfettered by music in the modern era; he has instead concentrated on early 20th Century vaudeville, ragtime, and popular songs as recorded on obscure 78s and cylinders from the dawn of recorded music. This CD includes music written by Eubie Blake, Scott Joplin, Big Bill Broonzy, James Scott, Lucky Roberts, and a Ventresco original as well. He learns most of his repertoire by ear, and his raucous yet sensitive playing style is a welcome alternative to the scholarly, delicate approach that usually characterizes ragtime guitar recordings.

Track List:

Disc: 1

1. Shuffle Rag
2. An Operatic Rag
3. Goodnight Angeline - Medley
4. Whoa, You Heifer (A Cowboy Intermezzo)
5. Tobasco
6. Ragtime Oriole
7. Oysters and Clams - Medley
8. Dance of the Nile Maidens
9. A Black Smoke
10. Sunflower Slow Drag
11. Shadow Blues
12. Handsome Harry
13. Lingering Love - Medley
14. The Georgia Grind
15. Salome
16. High Brown Blues
17. Junk Man Rag
18. Back to Baltimore - Medley