From the September/October 2019 trouble of Acoustic Guitar often have interaction, at least no longer in apparent ways. But after they do—as in Diego Garcia’s “Spanish Rag”—the outcomes may be transcendent. Of his solo guitar composition, Garcia says, “It’s simple Spanish cadences meet Merle Travis.”
Garcia, who's now in his early 40s, got an early begin to tune. At the age of six he started out learning classical guitar in his local Valencia, Spain, beneath the tutelage of Jose Lázaro, who had studied with Andrés Segovia. In his youngster years Garcia took a eager hobby in American guitar sounds, specifically in rockabilly and Chet Atkins, and joined a rock band. Since then, Garcia has combined his Spanish roots with North and South American affects in his work on acoustic, both steel- and nylon-string, and electric powered guitar.
Garcia is known to play “Spanish Rag” on a hollowbody electric, particularly a Gibson ES-295, however as he demonstrates within the accompanying video on AG’s website, the piece works out splendidly on a metallic-string just like the Collings OM1 JL Julian Lage signature version. Whatever the instrument, “Spanish Rag,” with its breakneck tempo, isn't the easiest rag to tackle, but given its wealth of thrilling guitar maneuvers, it’s worth the effort to woodshed on this one.
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