Biography
TOULOUSE ENGELHARDT: Biography
Guitar instrumentalist, composer and humorist Toulouse Engelhardt, the celebrated guitar virtuoso, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but has lived immersed in Southern California beach culture for much of the past four decades. Over the years Toulouse has earned accolades from serious critics of the guitar and the public alike for his lightning-fast guitar stylings and colorful, cinematic melodies. He was the last original member of the so-called “Takoma Seven,” the highly celebrated innovators of finger-style guitar that recorded for Takoma Records from 1965 to 1976 and included John Fahey and Leo Kottke. Today many in the music industry believe that Toulouse Engelhardt deserves a place among the elite group of legendary guitar masters.
He began playing the guitar at the young age of six. His earliest influences were the “wet” driving instrumental sounds of surf music, but he soon found this limiting his musical evolution, so he proceeded to search out more sophisticated musical stylings. “I grew up with a ‘Ventures Model’ Mosrite guitar in my hands,” offers the guitar wiz, who chose to purchase Dick Dale’s “The Wedge” over the Beatles “She Loves You.” He claims to have had just two guitar lessons in his life: One was from guitar great Larry Carlton, who taught him how to play “Walk Don’t Run” by the Ventures; the other was from legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery. According to Engelhardt, “Back when I was just turning thirteen, Wes gave me a few tips in technique at the backstage door of the famous Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach, California at one o’clock in the morning!”
Compositions by Toulouse Engelhardt are hard to classify. Each tune is arranged for six- or twelve-string guitar, Mosrite “surf” guitar, or ensemble. Every song penned or arranged by Engelhardt is created in his signature writing style, the “tone poem,” an impressionistic, almost cinematic technique used by only a handful of composers and arrangers. For years, music critics have tried in vain to classify the “Toulouse Sound,” a collage of musical stylings based in traditional Americana, acoustic blues, ragtime, and the “wet” surf sounds of the early 1960s, mixed with a touch of World Beat! To achieve his distinctive sound, Engelhardt relies on a large arsenal of guitars. In concert he performs with a custom made Art Davis twelve-string from San Diego’s A. Davis Guitars, a Taylor 855 Jumbo twelve-string, a Martin D-28-12, and finally his “rosebud of choice,” the Mosrite “Ventures Model” surf guitar. “Each instrument has a personality of its own,” says the famed guitarist. “The challenge for me is to bring out the best in each of their individual personalities.”
Engelhardt has had two critically-acclaimed record releases: the first, the classic 1975 vinyl album Toullusions, released through Takoma Records, a milestone label that showcased the finest in fingerstyle guitar innovators, among them Leo Kottke and John Fahey; and more recently, the 1994 CD re-release of Toullusions with four bonus tracks, for Sierra/Hollywood Records, a Walt Disney Company, distributed worldwide by PolyGram International.
In the period from 1976-1980, Toulouse Engelhardt was listed annually in the Guitar Player magazine Readers Poll in the “Best Finger Picking” category. Over the years he has also received the endorsement of three of the music world’s most respected builders of fine musical instruments: A. Davis Guitars of San Diego, California; Taylor Guitars of El Cajon, California; and the late Semie Moseley himself, the creator of the famous Mosrite “Ventures Model” electric guitar.
Toulouse Engelhardt has toured the nation with some of the most influential groups in the music business; including a twelve-city tour with The Byrds. He joined the Kenny Loggins “Celebrate Me Home” tour during the early 1980s, and has performed for his “cult” following ever since, touring nationwide with some of the best: Jack Bruce, formerly of Cream, George Winston, Ry Cooder, Bob Weir & Kingfish, Kenny Rankin, Dick Dale, Chris Darrow, Remi Kabaka (of Paul McCartney’s Wings, Ginger Baker’s Air Force and Traffic), David Lindley, Dave Mason, the late John Stewart, Todd Rundgren, George Thorogood, Adrian Belew, Spyro Gyra, Hiroshima, and former Byrds Gene Clark and John York. He also performed with Clark again when he and the Dillard Brothers toured as Dillard & Clark. Engelhardt even shared the stage twice with Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra!
The eclectic U.S. independent label Lost Grove Records has also released two additional albums recorded by Toulouse Engelhardt. The first, entitled A Child’s Guide to Einstein, explores world rhythms and lyrical melodies from around the planet, in a thematic “pan-world” context. The second, a collection of Mosrite guitar tracks entitled Martian Lust, challenges the listener to discover and investigate “other-worldly sounds,” and takes the electric guitar to the ultimate extreme! Both of these recordings showcase the “Toulouse Sound” in a sophisticated blend of guitar solo and ensemble performances. The dynamite professional collaborations between the seasoned guitar virtuoso and other stellar performers once again reinforced Engelhardt’s standing as one of the most talented innovators in his genre!
Engelhardt has never been one to bow to tradition and accept the confines of the status quo. As noted in Variety in the fall of 2008, Toulouse is still remembered today as the first to bring an electric guitar to the stage of the famed acoustic venue, McCabe’s Guitar Shop, in Santa Monica, California.
In the same vein, in late 2007 Engelhardt recorded and released The Lubbock Lights, an ambient electronic groove track laid down by the Southern California production team TEA, over which Engelhardt composed and played a melodic and effects-laden sci-fi reflection, paying tribute to the 1955 UFO sighting in Lubbock, Texas, from which the tune’s title is derived. In a strange coincidence, while the production was underway, an eerily similar series of “lights-in-the-sky” UFO sightings took place near Stevensville, Texas.
In the fall of 2009, Lost Grove Records released Engelhardt’s latest work, Perpendicular Worlds, regarded by those who have heard it as his best work to date and the genre-bending pinnacle of his career. Returning to the TEA production team of Franck Balloffet and Phil Bunch, Engelhardt has spent the past two years crafting an unequalled collection of classic compositions and virtuoso performances which will undoubtedly insure his continued presence in the stratosphere of guitardom.
“Guitar genius Toulouse Engelhardt is on the loose again!” — www.latimes.com.
“Toulouse Engelhardt plays the guitar with such dexterity that it sounds like he has at least 15 fingers! He is a showcase of technical brilliance and a master in both composition and performance!”
– Richard Foss, All Music Guide.
“One of my all-time favorite guitar players!” — David Lindley, Live Performance.
“Jimi Hendrix would have admired his incredible fingerwork!” — Voodoo Child Magazine.
“The Segovia of Surf” — Longboard Magazine.
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