World Class Guitar Music by fingerstyle & Jazzamenco tm (jazz/nuevo flamenco) guitarist / producer / recording artist Wayne Wesley Johnson with guest appearances by Nokie Edwards (The Ventures), Tom Doyle (The Les Paul Trio) & many more

Wayne Wesley Johnson with featured guest artist appearances by Tom Doyle, Nokie Edwards (The Ventures),

World Class Guitar Music by fingerstyle & Jazzamenco tm (jazz/nuevo flamenco) guitarist / producer / recording artist Wayne Wesley Johnson with guest appearances by Nokie Edwards (The Ventures), Tom Doyle (The Les Paul Trio) & many more

Wayne Wesley Johnson with featured guest artist appearances by Tom Doyle, Nokie Edwards (The Ventures), Gao Hong, Consuelo Luz, Mario Reynolds, Matt Vaughn. With Paul Arntz, Ben Lucero & Tim Stroh on bass guitars, Josef Martinez on latin percussion & K.C. Morris on drums and percussion

Canciones del alma "Songs from the Soul"

1. Rumba Azul aka (Blue Rumba) w/ Gao Hong / Mario Reynolds Johnson/bmi 6:26
2. Baile de la paloma aka (Dance of the Dove) w/ Mario Reynolds Johnson/bmi 4:23
3. Cancion del alma aka (Song from the Soul) w/ Mario Reynolds / Matt Vaughn / WWJ on guitar and piano Johnson/bmi 2:32
4. Fire of the Gypsy w/ Tom Doyle / Nokie Edwards / Matt Vaughn Doyle/bmi 2:37
5. Segovia's Dream w/ Gao Hong Cenicola 4:00
6. Chi-di-di-cha-cha w/ Gao Hong / Consuelo Luz Randell 3:17
7. Camina no corras aka (Walk Don't Run) w/ Nokie Edwards / Mario Reynolds Smith/bmi 2:42
8. Rumba Oriental aka (Mama Song) w/ Gao Hong Taiwanese traditional 2:48
9. Venus featuring Nokie Edwards w/ Mario Reynolds / Matt Vaughn Marshall / ascap 2:45
10. Sambaleo w/ Mario Reynolds on pan flute at intro & WWJ also on Godin Glissentar Johnson/bmi 2:54
11. The River Suite WWJ solo guitar Johnson/bmi 3:21
12. Pharoah's Journey w/ Gao Hong / Mario Reynolds Johnson/bmi 4:59
13. Pipeline duet with Nokie Edwards Spickard, Carman/bmi 2:59
14. Melancolia aka (Melancholy) WWJ solo guitar Johnson/bmi 2:36

"World Class Guitar Music"

For Bookings & Information: Wannadu, LLC 7 Avenida Vista Grande #260, Santa Fe, NM 87508 USA Phone: 505.466.8700 Fax: 505.466.8702 http://wannadu.com email: Wannadullc@aol.com

Acoustic / Electric / Fingerstyle / Jazz / World Beat / Rumba Flamenca

Discover "Jazzamenco" tm Categorize as :Instrumental / World / Nuevo Flamenco / Jazz

Wayne Wesley Johnson "is a fine guitarist and fine drummer, too" -Living Guitar Legend Les Paul at the Iridium, NYC

Nylon & Steel String Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Guitar Synthesizer, Fla-quinto tm & Godin Glissentar by Wayne Wesley Johnson

With special guest virtuoso artist appearances in alphabetical order T.W. Tom Doyle (guitar) , Nokie Edwards formerly of The Ventures (guitar)
Gao Hong (pipa/Chinese guitar), Mario Reynolds (pan flute / charango) & Matt Vaughn (violin)

With accompaniment by Paul Arntz, Ben Lucero, & Tim Stroh (bass)
Josef Martinez (latin percussion), K.C. Morris (drums & percussion)

Title Song Cancion del alma (Song from the Soul) also features WWJ on guitar & piano

Executive Producer
Wayne Wesley Johnson / Wannadu, LLC

Producer / Arranger Wayne Wesley Johnson

Associate Producer / Arranger Fire of the Gypsy, Sambaleo, Camina no corras, Venus & The River Suite
T.W. Tom Doyle

WWJ's Original Music Publishing Wannadu Music div. Wannadu, LLC / BMI

Recorded Analog Stepbridge Studios, Santa Fe, N.M.
Sound Control Studios, Nashville, Tn.

Engineering Tim Stroh / Stepbridge Studios Mark Mosley / Sound Control Studios

Mixing Wayne Wesley Johnson T.W. Tom Doyle (Les Paul's Sound Engineer)
Tim Stroh / Stepbridge Studios

24 bit HD Mastering David Glasser / Airshow Mastering, Inc. Boulder, CO

Pressing & Packaging Sound Recorders, Austin Texas

Graphic Design & Illustration Charles Azbell / Charles Azbell Galleries Santa Fe, NM

Other WWJ releases: with Ruben Romero Hypnotic Safari (wannadu), Flamenco Flavors (Iago / Talking Taco), Flamenco Festival (Narada / Hallmark Music)

A message from Dr. Mark Pritcher, CAAS President...

As President of the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society it is my pleasure to recommend Wayne Wesley Johnson as a fine guitarist and a fine entertainer. He has performed at our annual convention for over six years in Nashville, Tennessee. He is accomplished in several styles of music, including acoustic, electric, steel and nylon string, jazz, world, new age, flamenco, finger-style and thumb-style playing in the Atkins/Travis style. His unique compositions combine the worlds of jazz and flamenco. I hope you have an opportunity soon to invite Wayne Wesley Johnson to perform his music for you. -Mark Pritcher

About the Artist: Wayne Wesley Johnson

New Jersey-born Wayne Wesley Johnson was inspired as a boy by Les Paul, Chet Atkins, Duane Eddy, Nokie Edwards and The Ventures, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery and later by George Benson, Pat Martino, and Earl Klugh. Wayne took up guitar at the age of nine in the late 50s, and was groomed primarily as a jazz style flatpicking guitarist, having studied with Sandy DeVito, Gary Keller, Eddie Berg, and Vic Cenicola. He also studied classical technique briefly with Carol Hammersma, and flamenco techniques with Ruben and Miguel Romero, but this came much later in the artist's musical life.

In the early 60's, Wayne was a leader of his own bands, "The Yellow Jackets" and "Sons and Lovers," and played rock n' roll, rhythm & blues, and jazz standards. His bands grew from three musicians to as many as 11 complete with a 5 piece horn section and all. He played a variety of instruments in his bands including electric and acoustic guitar, steel guitar, drums, tenor sax, and trumpet.

Thrilled with the prospect of working with some of his childhood guitar heroes, Wayne later was given the opportunity to work on occasion as drummer for living guitar legend Les Paul, with whom he toured the U.S. and South America in 1979 & '80. He has also performed on occasion as a drummer for Nokie Edwards, lead guitarist with The Ventures, and on guitar and/or drums with his friends and thumb-picking artists Thom Bresh, Tom (T.W.) Doyle, Eddie Pennington, Bob Saxton, Tommy Flint, and Anthony Smith.

Through the years Wayne has performed at various events worldwide and has shared the stage with other famous guitarists including Bucky Pizzarelli, George Benson, Les Paul, Howard Roberts, Thom Bresh, Larry Carlton, BB King, Chet Atkins, Buster B. Jones, Edgar Cruz, Tim Farrell, Bobby Gibson, Zoe McColluch, Tommy Emmanuel, Laurence Juber, Stephen Bennett, Muriel Anderson, Richard Smith, Romane, Marcel Dadi, Martin Taylor, Pat Kirtley, Jim & Morning Nichols, Al Caiola, Lou Mecca, Seymour Duncan and many others.

Wayne's international circle of friends includes some of the world's greatest guitarists and guitar makers. He was introduced many years ago, in Nashville, to the thumb-picking country style of Thom Bresh (son of the late Merle Travis), and to the late French guitarist, Marcel Dadi, Eddie Pennington, Tommy Flint, and Buster B. Jones, and to the finger-style influences of the late Tommy Jones, Laurence Juber, Ed Gerhard, Martin Simpson, Pat Kirtley and others. Wayne has performed with Thom Bresh at a private convention held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. They are currently working on some audio/video recording projects together.

Upon putting down the flat pick in favor of thumb and finger-style technique, Johnson later became interested in the Spanish and New Mexico flamenco and Latin sounds of Paco de Lucia, Ottmar Liebert, Armik, Strunz and Farah, Shahin and Sepher, Willie and Lobo, the Gipsy Kings, and his friend and recording partner on "Hypnotic Safari, Flamenco Flavors and Flamenco Festival, Ruben Romero.

Wayne has since begun developing a playing style of his own, an integration of different techniques, which he refers to as "Jazzamenco." As evident on this, the artist's first solo CD release.

Wayne is a regular annual performer and staunch supporter of GFL Guitars for Life, NAMM International Music Products Association, the CAAS Chet Atkins Appreciation Society and others. Much of Wayne's world music influence stems from the fact that he has traveled extensively both for business and his musical interests. He has traveled to and performed in Nanjing China, Israel, Buenos Aires Argentina, Barcelona Spain, Soave Italy, Paris France, Zurich Switzerland, Dusseldorf and Frankfort Germany, Copenhagen and Aalborg Denmark, Helsinki Finland, Brussels Belgium, Birmingham & Brighton England, Prague Czech Republic, and throughout the United States.

Wayne's Dad, though American, was of Swedish and English decent, and his Mom, Italian American. (probably, where the Mediterranean musical influence comes from.) So, Wayne grew up in a household full of a variety of musical influences, to begin with. Some of his ancestors were musicians too, he is told. As a producer and performer, Wayne enjoys merging various musical cultures which he has been exposed to in his travels and his upbringing. Musical cultures that typically wouldn't find each other. Hence, some examples in this recording are the integration of Chinese pentatonic melodies performed on guitar, guitar synthesizer (WWJ) and pipa (Gao Hong) blended with Spanish and latin rumba flamenco rhythms (WWJ), and further complimented with Bolivian pan flutes and charango (Mario Reynolds). Rumba Azul , Rumba Oriental , Chi-ci-ci-cha-cha, and Pharoah's Journey were all produced in this manner. Another example is the blending of the Chinese guitar (pipa) with the Brazilian Bossa nova or Samba as evidenced by the Vic Cenicola tune, Segovia's Dream.

Wayne met one of his guitar idols, Nokie Edwards (The Ventures) at a musical event a few years ago and shared his idea about doing remakes of Walk Don't Run, Venus and Pipeline ala Nuevo flamenco, in future recordings. Nokie was impressed with Wayne's concept and agreed to accompany Wayne in these recordings of those tunes. Of course Walk Don't Run, written by jazz guitar great Johnny Smith (another one of Wayne's idols), was the Ventures most famous tune next to Hawaii Five 0. Since this new version has a latin rhythm to it, Wayne aptly calls it Camina no corras.

The Ed Marshall tune, Venus was originally recorded by vocalist Frankie Avalon. It was the first 45 RPM record Wayne ever received as a young boy. It was a gift from one of his favorite cousins, Madeline Sorrenti. It was an all time favorite of Wayne's, and is now presented as an instrumental with a latin flavor, by Nokie and Wayne. Nokie Edwards is the featured performer on this piece.

Pipeline written by Spickard and Carman, was originally recorded by the Chantays, one of Wayne's favorite instrumental guitar tunes of the 60's. Shortly thereafter, another version was released on a Ventures album. Nokie Edwards played the lead guitar on many of the Ventures tunes, and Pipeline was no exception. On this musical presentation, Nokie plays electric lead and Wayne joins him on a nylon string flamenco guitar for some lead doubling in harmony all with a rumba flamenca rhythm performed by Wayne, in the background.

In Fire of the Gypsy, Santa Fe, New Mexico violinist Matt Vaughn and swing guitarist Tom Doyle from New Jersey join Wayne to create a 'Gypsy Jazz' feel a swing style made famous in France by the famous Gipsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and The Hot Club of France which featured Django and violinist Stephan Graphelli. Tom Doyle wrote this tune for Wayne and this album.

In another life, Johnson has also been a successful business executive having served as President and CEO of two electronic industrial scale firms, concurrently. For nearly 14 years he lead his firms while he harbored his passion for music. He gave up the corporate life, in 2001 and relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico where today he enjoys regular guitar performances at local resorts, tours, and producing recordings. He now owns his own record label, and also does some consulting work for other musicians and businesses on occasion.

Over the years, Wayne has also developed as a collector and has had as many as 100 guitars in his collection, several of which are featured on his recordings. He has also designed guitars both for himself and for well-known manufacturers. A self-professed "equipment junkie," Wayne has an arsenal of guitars, amplifiers, studio gear, and sound modules. With the advent of reliable and higher-performance guitar synthesizers and Roland COSM technology, Wayne has embraced the use of the GR-1, GR-33, and VG-8, used on some mixes of his latest recordings.

Invention is a family tradition. His father and grandfather were inventors. Wayne is no exception. He holds a patent on a leather executive's briefcase Lesecutivo tm, various industrial scale designs, and is the noted creator of the 'Tap Guitar' tm , a flamenco guitar outfitted with 19 midi trigger plates that allows the performer to drum and strum at the same time producing authentic latin percussion and drum sounds and the 'Fla-quinto' tm, a custom made double necked flamenco and requinto, which was used occasionally in these recordings.

Additionally, Wayne is a contributing consultant to Just Jazz Guitar Magazine.

Note: Wayne is currently working on his next CD release "Summertime in Santa Fe" (Wannadu). Joining him in this extraordinary guitar project are virtuoso guitarists: Thom Bresh, Edgar Cruz, Tom Doyle, Anthony Smith, Tim Farrell, Lou Pallo, drummer/percussionist K.C. Morris, and upright bassist Jon Gagan.

Various vintage archtop guitars from the Johnson Collection are used in this upcoming CD release, many played simultaneously. Handmade guitars by D'Angelico, Stromberg, Benedetto, Triggs, Epiphone, Koontz & Gibson make this upcoming release one of historical significance. A video is also forthcoming.

WWJ comments:
A brief about some of the tunes in this recording:

Rumba Azul (Blue Rumba) was named so, because it blends the basic I-IV-V blues chord changes with a layered rumba flamenco rhythm. It has been aired numerous times on WBTV's Roswell TV show episode Crazy I used finger-style nylon string guitar and flat-picked electric guitar on this one I'm joined by Gao Hong on pipa and Mario Reynolds on pan flute and charango. There's some real nice drumming and latin percussion work done on this one by K.C. Morris and Josef Martinez, Ben Lucero is on bass.

Baile de la paloma (Dance of the Dove). My fiancée, Freda and I were sitting outside a café in Del Coronado, near San Diego, CA, having a cappuccino, and watching the pigeons 'dancing' in front of us, pecking away at blueberry muffin crumbs. There they were bopping their little heads as they moved forward in a rhythmic fashion. I told Freda I had to write a song called dance of the pigeons. She thought the word dove sounded more appropriate. I agreed. Since it was put to a latin beat, I named it Baile de la paloma. This tune was a winner in the John Lennon Songwriter's Contest / Dance category. I'm joined by Mario Reynolds on charango. Guitars used by me are the Heritage 'Bluesette' with T.W. Doyle pickups and the Hernandez Huipe WWJ model cutaway flamenco. Ben Lucero on bass, K.C. Morris on drums, and Josef Martinez on latin percussion.

Cancion del alma (Song from the Soul) I wrote this song many years ago and had never recorded it. I actually wrote it on the piano and then figured it out on the guitar, later on. I performed the piano part, too, on this one. Live performances of this tune receive outstanding reception. It has been licensed to RCN media for the Discovery Channel for airing on an upcoming Outward Bound Series program. I'm joined by Matt Vaughn on 'sensuous' violin and Mario Reynolds on charango. K.C. Morris performs on drums and latin percussion. Paul Arntz of Nashville, Tn is on bass.

Fire of the Gypsy Also slated for upcoming airing on the Discovery Channel's Outward Bound Series, this tune was written for this album by my closest friend and musical genius, T. W. Tom Doyle. I was flattered when Tom told me he wrote the tune for my CD. The arrangement was also done by Tom Doyle. All of the rhythm guitar work on this tune was performed by Tom Doyle. A Mexican requinto was used for the lead, by me. Also joining Tom and I are Nokie Edwards on the McGill resonator guitar and Matt Vaughn on violin. Tim Stroh is on Fender Precision Bass and K.C. Morris performs on drums with brushes and Josef Martinez on castanets.

Segovia's Dream A long time favorite tune of mine. Written by my good friend and one time jazz...