{"id":2447509,"date":"2019-08-13T22:16:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T04:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=311141"},"modified":"2019-08-13T22:16:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-14T04:16:00","slug":"acoustic-guitar-hero-mike-dawes-on-playing-with-moody-blues-justin-hayward-at-belly-up-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/acoustic-guitar-hero-mike-dawes-on-playing-with-moody-blues-justin-hayward-at-belly-up-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Acoustic guitar hero Mike Dawes on playing with Moody Blues\u2019 Justin Hayward at Belly Up Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Fingerstyle guitar player Mike Dawes will play Belly Up on Thursday with Moody Blues lead singer Justin Hayward.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

English fingerstyle guitar player Mike Dawes has been touring with the Moody Blues lead singer and guitarist Justin Hayward since 2013, The classic rock legend\u2019s unique solo tour, which comes to Belly Up Aspen on Thursday, also includes the addition of flute player Karmen Gould.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of classic Moody Blues songs are very flute-heavy, so we\u2019re able to integrate those into the set,\u201d Dawes said in a recent phone interview. \u201cThere will be a lot of surprises for the fans who have seen the show before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayward\u2019s four-piece band also includes Julie Ragins, who played with the Moody Blues for many years, on keyboards and backing vocals.<\/p>\n

Dawes developed his love affair with the guitar when he first moved to a new school as a kid. In order to fit in at this new school, the \u201ccool\u201d kid happened to have a guitar and knew how to play. So, at first, Dawes started playing guitar just to fit in.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I started playing my first little riffs and chords, I became completely obsessed,\u201d Dawes said. \u201cAnd then I moved to acoustic guitar later and actually learned classic Moody Blues songs from old chord books that my mum had. Who would know years later that I\u2019d end up playing with Justin and playing these songs onstage with him?\u201d<\/p>\n

In his unusual style and the technique, Dawes simultaneously plays drum parts, baselines, chords and melodies all live together, at once, on the acoustic guitar. It allows the group to get a bigger sound out of just four pieces.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin is playing on some of his amazing guitars out of the woodwork \u2014 some of which he used to record some of the band\u2019s classic records,\u201d Dawes said. \u201cThere are 17 acoustic guitars on this tour. Any guitar nerds will get a kick out of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

His style initially stemmed from the fact that Dawes was from a very small town in England and he couldn\u2019t find any other musicians to play with.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always had this passion to create music,\u201d Dawes said. \u201cSo that, combined with being a bit of a control freak, led me to the acoustic guitar where you can ditch the guitar pick and use your fingers to create all of these different textures. The acoustic guitar has a hollow body\u2014making it easy to create a nice, big sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dawes was named \u201cBest Acoustic Guitarist in the World Right Now\u201d in both 2017 and 2018 by Total Guitar Magazine\/Music Radar. In June 2012, he released his first solo instrumental arrangement of Gotye\u2019s smash hit \u201cSomebody That I Used to Know.\u201d The YouTube video was an overnight success \u2014 receiving 1.5 million views in just one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt totally went crazy. Suddenly I was getting all kinds of concert offers from all around the world, including the United States,\u201d Dawes said. \u201cSo, I started traveling \u2014 went to every continent on the planet, playing shows from tiny little bars to big theaters. Along the way, I met up with Justin and have been working with him on his tours, which has been an absolute thrill. He lets me play some of my own tunes during the show, as well. It\u2019s always a privilege to play to his audience. His audience consists of fantastic, loyal and very supportive fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently working on his third album, due out next year, Dawes is showcasing some of his new tunes on this tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy days off are usually spent behind the guitar working on new music,\u201d Dawes said.<\/p>\n

Dawes has never played Aspen, though he said it\u2019s always been on his bucket list. After traveling the world, the U.S. is still his favorite place to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people here just get the guitar,\u201d Dawes said. \u201cThey understand acoustic guitar music. Also, I inject a little bit of awkward, cheesy British humor into the show which I do think a lot of Americans respond to. It\u2019s really the perfect place to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fingerstyle guitar player Mike Dawes will play Belly Up on Thursday with Moody Blues lead singer Justin Hayward.Courtesy photo English fingerstyle guitar player Mike Dawes has been touring with the Moody Blues lead singer and guitarist Justin Hayward since 2013, The classic rock legend\u2019s unique solo tour, which comes to Belly Up Aspen on Thursday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2447509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-20 17:06:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}