Mike Dawes | Fully Seated

folk · rock

Mike Dawes is an English fingerstyle acoustic guitarist, born July 21, 1989 in Guildford, Surrey, known for percussive tapping and for composing, arranging and performing multiple parts simultaneously on a single guitar. He started on electric guitar at twelve and switched to steel-string acoustic in 2008, releasing the EP Reflections independently in 2009. His solo arrangement of Gotye's 'Somebody That I Used to Know', posted in 2012, drew tens of millions of views and established the one-guitar, many-parts approach he is identified with; later arrangements of Metallica's 'One' and Van Halen's 'Jump' reached comparable audiences. His studio albums are What Just Happened? (2013), Era (2017) and Galactic Acid (2024), and the live record Shows and Distancing: Live in the USA appeared in 2020. He recorded Accomplice Series, Vol. 3 (2022) as a duet album with Tommy Emmanuel, has appeared on several Justin Hayward live releases including Spirits... Live, and worked with the progressive metal band Periphery on a 2024 double single of acoustic reworkings, 'Scarlet' and 'It's Only Smiles'. Readers of Total Guitar and MusicRadar voted him best acoustic guitarist in the world in 2017 and 2018. Away from his own records he has done session work for the Better Call Saul soundtrack and played electric guitar on the score for the game Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, written columns for Guitar World and Acoustic Guitar, taught masterclasses and online courses, and served as a judge on Sky TV's Guitar Star. In 2016 he became the first acoustic artist endorsed by the pickup maker DiMarzio, and he plays a signature model from the guitar maker Cuntz alongside G7th capos and a Tonewood amp. He performs solo, and the 'Fully Seated' billing marks dates presented as seated theatre-style concerts rather than standing-room shows.

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