Ron Gragg - Holy

Hear The Track Here

Chance is a cruel beast. It often occurs in my reviews when I get tracks that are either so similar or so diametrically opposed that they affect my judgement of them somewhat. In commercial terms it would be like choosing between whoever two of your favourite acts are. Victim of the beast this month is American Christian Rock musician Ron Gragg. Having to follow Michael Hughes is always going to be a hard gig, and the gravity of his track just made it so much more unattainable, regardless of how good a musician you were, and let me tell you Ron Gragg is no slouch. Certainly, in the last two years or so, Ron has become very visible on many sites and that can only be a good thing.

Holy is, if you hadn't already guessed, an acoustic instrumental but if you cannot take yet another one of them I have some good news for you. There is a song too, on which this new version is widely based. Written by Ron in 2003, Holy Is The Lord shows Ron's Christian sentiments as well as some pretty nifty guitar playing and a decent song. Ron's reasons for doing this are that he sees this both as a song and as an instrumental in its own right. Well, for all its Clapton overtones, Holy Is The Lord is certainly varied and would definitely go down well in some quarters.

Holy is composed and played based on the tuning E-B-C-A-G-E which may look like some kind of errant gene sequence to most people but open tunings have been around forever and much employed by guitarists everywhere. For me, I like their drone quality (and of course it makes playing look easier) but I also like them for the way they stretch the guitarist themselves, forcing them to think in new ways. Whatever, my personal take is that I would have liked the clarity of this instrumental with the vocal from the song in the same quality, that would be a pretty neat track. That doesn't mean to say this isn't, it is. But hey, two for the price of one? Who can resist?

Recommended acoustic instrumental.