Hugh Ferguson: RIP...
I have just become aware of this tragic news. I've loved Hugh Ferguson's playing for a long while, so it is a sad day to hear that he has passed away over one year ago.
Hugh started his career in music on the drums at the age of six, playing his first concert at eight. Originally from the Boston area, he grew up in a musical family with two older guitar-playing brothers. Switching to guitar at eleven. Hugh grew up with the sounds of rock and roll through the 60's and early 70's. By the ripe old age of 14 he was already playing the Boston Club scene, cranking out Hendrix, Santana and Allman Brothers tunes.

In the mid 70's, Hugh was turned on to Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu and Chic Corea and his style of music took a dramatic turn. In 1978 he moved to Phoenix and began touring with several club bands around the US, finally moving back to the Boston area in 1981.

In 1982 Hugh started his first rendition of the MR Wizard band and was featured in Guitar Player Magazine. Soon after he started to get requests for lessons from students at the Berklee College of Music. Having no formal training, it was a challenge to teach his method of playing. In 1984 his new MR Wizard band got some local notoriety by being warm up act for Allan Holdsworth, Til' Tuesday and several other well-known acts.

Hugh Ferguson was spotted by Mark Varney in his Guitar Player magazine article after a tape made by Robert Howland was sent to Mike showing Hugh Ferguson's. The tape resulted in a Spotlight article 1982.
http://www.hughferguson.net/

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The rest as they say is history... sadly it appears that Hugh has now passed away in California back in 2012. He'll be greatly missed by me... I was a big fan of his legato playing. RIP Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.