John Thomas Fingerstyle Guitar:: Acoustic Blues and Ragtime Music in Connecticut

Click on the links below to hear and view sound and movie files.

NPR Performance I was honored to play my custom, Walker SJ when NPR interviewed one of the wrold's best guitar makers, Kim Walker

The Water is WidePlayed on my 1920 Maurer 541

The Last Time I Saw Home Played on my 1920 Maurer 541

Shuckin' Sugar A Blind Lemon Jefferson tune played on my 1925 Stella.

Back to Little Rock Another old blues tune tune played on my 1925 Stella. .

Performance video This is a live performance on my Walker guitar.Â In honor of Scott Joplin's birthday, I played The Entertainer and Silver Swan.

Performance video This is another live performance on my Walker guitar. Here, I play my arrangement of the Henry Mancini tune, Peter Gunn.

Performance video This is a live performance on my National resonator guitar. The tunes are: 1) another performance of Peter Gunn, 2) a medley of Tommy Emmanuel's arrangements of Blue Moon and Taste of Honey, 3) my attempt at arranging Chet Atkins's Yankee Doodle Dixie, and 4) an improvised blues spoof that steals equally from Lightning Hopkins and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Performance video This is another live performance on my National. The tunes are: 1) Boogie Woogie Dance by Tampa Red, a great 1930s guitar player, 2) my interpretation of Mike Dowling's Swampdog Blues, and 3) yet another blues spoof.

Old Joe Clark My arrangement of this traditional tune, played on my National in D tuning.

Peter Gunn My arrangement, stolen from every fingerstyle player that I have heard play this tune, of Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn.

Windy & Warm/Chet's Tune This is a medley of the John Loudermilk tune made famous by Chet Atkins and an unrecorded, unpublished Chet Atkins composition that I learned from Muriel Anderson.

Dallas Rag This is a live, radio performance of Dave Laibman's brilliant arrangment of the Dallas String Band's 1920s tune.

Yazoo Basin Boogie This is another live, radio performance of a piece by Stefan Grossman. The tune consists mostly of classic blues piano licks.

Stompin' at the Tampahannock A live, radio performance of my own arrangement of another Stefan Grossman tune. Grossman based this one on the playing of Willie Walker, and East Coast player in the 1920s. I've added a few licks from the playing of Blind Blake, a fantastic player also on the East Coast in the '20s.

All music is posted with permission of the artist.