G.D. West

"Whitewater" is about whitewater rafting. The patterns swirl and change constantly, in a driving rhythm. Hold on tight! This one moves fast.

This depicts an imagined ritual Aztec dance, but in reality, it's about the aftermath of eating at Taco Bell. A very strange piece of guitar music.

This song originally had lyrics, but it was almost impossible to breathe enough to sing the melody. I ended up using as an instrumental and it worked fine that way. This one is very lyrical and orchestral in its scope.

The title comes from a Ray Bradbury short story. One of the things I tried to do with this song as a solo piece was to create a separate moving bass line while playing a rhythmic accompaniment. You can hear that section in the middle. It's a fun piece to play.

This actually was the very first 12-string piece I composed, way back when I was in high school. I got my first 12-string and shortly thereafter, I came up with this melody. It has been an audience favorite ever since.

This title comes from the Voyager probe's picture showing Earth as a tiny greenish-blue dot from billions of miles away. The song is a duet of electric guitar and acoustic 12-string, with highlights from bass. The "string section" in the bridge is actually several electric guitars orchestrated.

"Winter Thunder" came from a sudden and rare winter thunder event in Southeast Alaska. The cool climate doesn't lead to thunderstorms forming, generally. One night, while setting up for a gig, there was, out of the blue, one brilliant flash of lightning and a simultaneous thunderclap. It was LOUD! Suddenly hail started falling for just a minute or two and then nothing. It kind of left us all in awe for a moment.

I wrote this one while sitting out on a lawn chair in front of a cheapo hotel outside Puyallup, Washington, watching the stars roll by overhead.

The album's title song, "Shades of Gray" has a couple of meanings. First, my music is hard to categorize. When I have to pick a genre to describe it, it's difficult. There are elements of folk, blues, jazz, and even rock in it. This song is a perfect example of a driving, constant bass beat from Delta blues to some very jazzy harmonies. The second meaning is that, as a guitarist who has played and composed music for almost 50 years, I have grown old and gray in the process! It has been a lifelong labor of love.

This is a quasi-jazzy track with a Bossa Nova kind of feel. The inspiration for it comes from the time I lived in France and the festive days of the national holiday, with fairs, fireworks, picnics in the park, and just a lot of fun times.