From David Gansz web site, "History of Schoenberg Guitars":
"Finally, the impact of the Schoenberg Soloists on the Martin Guitar Company (and, by their influence, on other makers such as Collings and Santa Cruz) cannot be underestimated. Dick Boak himself put it best when he said, "Martin owes a great thanks to Eric Schoenberg for almost single-handedly bringing back the OM. We owe to the Schoenberg project the cutaway shape (which is now used on several Martin models), as well as the fact that Eric raised everyone's understanding of the 'value' of Martin's old guitars, which eventually became instrumental in inspiring our Golden Era and Vintage Series. By the way, I love the Soloists. I own one!".
Eric’s love affair with the guitar began in 1959. He started teaching in the early Sixties and before long became the second-half of a duo with his cousin, Dave Laibman, helping Dave perform his amazing, ground-breaking arrangements of classical ragtime. Their album, Contemporary Ragtime Guitar, on Folkways Records, is considered a classic and remains a benchmark for today’s fingerstyle players. In the early Seventies Eric began touring the United States, Europe and Japan playing his innovative arrangements of the classical rags, traditional folk and Celtic music, the blues, country, and The Beatles, and making a lasting contribution to the fingerstyle repertoire. Eric also released two solo albums, Acoustic Guitar and Steel Strings, on Rounder Records. He continues to perform (Australia, in 2005) and record, most recently with Richard Scholtz on Late Night Conversations, and has written a book, Fingerpicking Beatles. He runs a concert series out of his Tiburon guitar shop, where, as an acknowledged expert in vintage instruments, Eric appraises old Martins, Gibsons, Stellas, and the like. The shop, Eric Schoenberg Guitars, was recently called one of the ten best in the U.S. to visit to learn about vintage guitars.
Eric playing his original composition, "All In Good Time" at the Schoenberg Guitars Twentieth Anniversary concert:
Download Six Tunes from Eric:
Floating Records is a new online music source for local musicians here in the Bay Area. The name comes from the fact that the office is located on a houseboat in Sausalito, which is about as nice a working environment as one can find. No wonder it is such a pleasant, happy company.
Eventually I plan to make all of my recorded material available through them, and to start it all off we have put up six tunes previously unavailable tunes recorded in the 1980’s in a fancy studio in mid-town Manhattan by Jay Newland. At the time, Jay was a new engineer just graduated from Berklee School of Music; he has since become quite successful - see: http://www.jdmanagement.com/jaynewland/.
The six tunes are:
1. Beautiful Mountain, comp. Eric Schoenberg: a three-part waltz I compsed years ago. This is the only recording.
2. Ma Na Vu, Trad, Israeli: a dance tune in which I’ve combined parts from two different instruments. Dropped D tuning
3. Graceful Ghost, comp. William Bolcomb, arr: Dave Laibman/Eric Schoenberg. My favorite of all the rags arranged by David Laibman. I heard him play it many times, loving it always, and finally was able to rearrange it enough to make it playable, almost.
4. Heart Like A Wheel, comp. Anna McGarrigle: An extaordinarily beautiful tune learned from the playing of Kate McGarrigle on a tape off the radio I made in way back from a performance Kate did late one night on a WBAI Bob Fass show.
5. La Complainte de la Butte, com. By Georges Van Parys, Jean Renoir. Taken from the playing and singing of Kate McGarrigle, from the same tape. I’ve listened to that tape about a billion times over the last thirty years, and am still spellbound by it every time.
6. Downtown Blues, comp. Eric Schoenberg: An off-the-cuff improvisation in the key of ‘A’.
