The Guitar Trio - Friday Night in San Francisco Review

I don’t tend to purchase CDs that I haven’t already listened to. I don’t like the risk involved. I have been burned once or twice buying an album that I know had a song I liked just to find out the rest of the album is crap. In this case, I took the risk. I bought Friday Night in San Francisco having only heard a few songs here and there from Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucia individually. I couldn’t have named a tune of their’s and I had never heard them all together, but for some reason that day I was feeling frisky. I bought the live album without ever hearing a shred of it.

I was initially quite amazed. I listened to it in the car a bit, I ripped it at work and listened to it on my quiet night shifts. Overall I was pretty happy with my purchase. Then, I don’t really know why, but I stopped listening to it for six months or so. A week or so ago I was browsing my CD collection for something to listen to on my daily work commute and I grabbed it almost instantly. For some reason this time around I am so much more impressed with the music. It has hit me on another level all together.

Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucia form a group known as The Guitar Trio. They have released two studio albums, one in 1982 and one in 1996 and then two corresponding live albums. Friday Night in San Francisco was released in 1980. The album is all acoustic guitar. There are no accompanying instruments, no vocals, and the only percussion is made by the guitarists slapping their guitars.

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