Fingerstyle guitarist Steve Eulberg hails from San Mateo, Calif., but his sweet instrumental music takes listeners on a mellow musical tour. On Between the Tracks, his ninth solo album, Eulberg plays folk (“For Emily,” “Morning Pages”) and blues (“The Guitar Twiddle,” the title track) while also dabbling in subtle Latin sounds on album-opener “Habits” and “Charlie’s Wrinkle.”
Eulberg’s influences range from Jim Croce and John Denver to George Benson, Earl Klugh, Tommy Emmanuel and Dan Fogelberg. He even creatively covers Fogelberg’s “Guitar Etude No.3,” which appeared on Fogelberg’s 1978 album with Tim Weisberg, Twin Sons of Different Mothers.
The fluid playing is unaccompanied by other instruments, and Eulberg’s liner notes about the origins of each song provide additional context. Sample (for “Traded My Thyroid In”): “When my voice was still recuperating from surgery to remove my cancerous thyroid in 2013, I composed this tune, which I love to play as a creative response to a deadly situation.”
These 13 melodic pieces prove to be relaxing comfort music and an acoustic guitar fan’s ideal companion during a stay-at-home order in the middle of a pandemic.
Track Listing:
1. Habits
2. For Emily
3. Planxton’s Farewell
4. Between the Tracks
5. Charlie’s Wrinkle
6. Godspeed
7. Theatricum Botanicum
8. The Guitar Twiddle
9. Morning Pages
10. Eos
11. Traded My Thyroid In
12. Guitar Etude No.3
13. Walking Down the Trail