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Spend an evening with renowned fingerstyle guitarist Trevor Gordon Hall featuring an opening performance by Alabama guitarist Josh TaylorTrevor has established himself as a unique and pioneering voice on the international stage, albeit one who speaks through his guitar and every sound that it’s capable of, rather than words. On top of a touring calendar that’s taken him through 17 countries and counting, his discography has amassed millions of listens and views through streaming services such as Spotify and YouTube, allowing his music to connect meaningfully with listeners across all borders, regardless of their language or location.
Since emerging on the fringe of the Philadelphia, USA, music scene as a young guitar virtuoso in the early 2000s, Trevor’s fingerpicking style of textured instrumentalism took little time to leave an impression on listeners. He was rated a top 30 under 30 guitarist by Acoustic Guitar Magazine and has shared the stage with or drawn praise from peers and guitar legends who helped blaze the path before him, including the likes of John Mayer, Steve Miller, Graham Nash, Steve Hackett, Dar Williams, Will Ackerman,Pat Martino, Stanley Jordan, Phil Keaggy, Tommy Emmanuel, Pierre Bensusan and Andy McKee to name a few. He’s also been featured on NPR, NBC, PBS, and many international outlets and publications around the world.
While cutting his teeth in the clubs and coffeehouses of the Philadelphia suburbs early in his career, Trevor caught the eye of nine-time Grammy award winning producer Joe Nicolo (James Taylor, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan) who produced two of Trevor’s releases,“Finding My Way” and a Christmas album “Let Your Heart Be Light.” As Trevor began to refine his sound and plot out his next compositions in a new decade, he began to collaborate with various engineers to develop an instrument that combined his own redesign of the kalimba, an African finger piano, with an acoustic guitar. The resulting “kalimbatar” fully demonstrated Trevor’s ability to innovate as a songwriter and unlocked a new suite of sounds and textures that he was able to weave into his music. While he had explored the kalimba on earlier recordings in a limited capacity, the kalimbatar phase of Trevor’s career was first fully realized onhis 2011 Candyrat Records debut, “Entelechy”, which left a mark on the iTunes singer-songwriter and YouTube charts at the time,gathering millions of views and widespread reach.
Following on the success of Entelechy, Trevor worked with master luthier Sheldon Schwartz to redesign the kalimbatar. Once perfected, Trevor recorded his next album with longtime hero and decorated Grammy winner Will Ackerman, the founder of Windham Hill Records, which was a treasure trove of inspiration for Trevor on his musical journey. The resulting work, titled “Mind Heart Fingers,” was written to honor the acoustic guitar tradition that Windham Hill records popularized in the 1980s and 1990s. Itwas released in 2014 and peaked at #4 on the World International Music radio charts.
This was followed up in 2015 with the first of an EP series, titled “Kalimbatar Classics Vol. 1”, which featured arrangements of classical piano standards reimagined by Trevor on the kalimbatar. Never one to rest on his laurels however, Trevor swapped out the kalimbatar for electric guitars and electronic texturing with 2016’s “Late Night With Headphones, Vol. 1”, which revealed a moodier palette, and a different side of his artistic reach.
As he worked through each album on his artistic journey, mining new connections, it became clear that Trevor’s explorations of the guitar were leaving an impact on other artists around him. In 2018, he was invited to share a stage with several other guitar titans,most notably John Mayer and Steve Miller, to honor the retirement of Dick Boak, a renowned figure in the guitar world and an artistrelations director for Martin Guitar. During that evening, Mayer offered his admiration to Trevor, praising his set and acknowledging Trevor’s usage of the kalimbatar as a humbling and refreshing reminder that the guitar is still revealing new approaches and sounds,even after all of these generations. Trevor’s hard work and innovative writing had earned him recognition within the pantheon of guitar luminaries.
With more command of his craft, came more shows around the world and more opportunities to make new musical connections withother artists. Trevor has recorded and performed with dozens of musicians across the continents on a variety of different projects andcompositions. 2021’s “The Other World on Our Planet” is perhaps Trevor’s most dynamic example of branching out to new territoryas a collaborator, which saw Trevor utilizing his artistry to support a different discipline: investigative journalism. The EP serves as amusical compliment to The Outlaw Ocean, a New York Times bestselling book about lawlessness on international waters by award-winning reporter Ian Urbina.
After several years of a life lived loudly — performing his music around the world and immersing himself in different cultures, sounds and experiences — Trevor retreated to the solitude of his Pennsylvania home for his next solo album, “This Beautiful Chaos.” Written in the early morning hours while his wife and daughter slept, then recorded with Grammy winning Corin Nelsen, the album finds him at his most vulnerable, contemplating these growth experiences and channeling them into a set of warm, vibrant songs. This is the sound of an artist who is fully confident in his voice, free within his constraints and precise in what he has to say, seasoned by years of literally growing up on record and stage. It’s a tantalizing signpost of what he’s capable of in the years ahead.
Trevor’s style is recognizably his own, but the next note he plays is never predictable, or the obvious choice. This is a musical career you’ll want to stick around for, because the next show or the next song is always a new possibility
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