My older brother was big into classical guitar when we were young. At that time, Liona Boyd was not as well-respected among classical guitar snobs as some other guitarists. I never heard her play, live or on recordings, so I can't say for myself, but a number of people thought that because of her appearance she was "marketed" more than her talents deserved. A cynical view, to be sure, but if true, it wouldn't be the first time. I think there's a female Latin American cellist or violinist whose name escapes me who's a real stinker but she's got a ton of records out there because she looks good.
Anyway, back to guitar...The really big guns back then were Segovia (of course) and John Williams (not to be confused with John Williams of
Star Wars fame). Julian Bream was up there too, but if memory serves, he was primarily a lutist who was able to make more of a name for himself on guitar, mainly because no one listened to lute music. Still, he was very good, and I'll never forget the joint Williams-Bream concert I got to go to in Ann Arbor back in the late '70s or early '80s. It was fantastic. I still have the program from it, tucked away in the cover of the 2-record LP they recorded on that tour, with notes I made in the margins. How's that for classical-music-geekiness?
On this side of the Pond, the big name was Christopher Parkening, whose playing was unassailable, even if (as I've been told) he instructed his EMI/Angel engineers to roll all the highs off of his recordings to eliminate string noise, making his records almost unlistenable, to me anyway. Hearing his recordings always makes me feel like my head is in a fog, like I'm listening in some sort of fever dream. But he's great, and for a while he took a young player under his wing, a kid named David Breaugh, or Breagh, I can't remember which. It doesn't matter how it was spelled because he changed his name to David Brandon. The only reason I mention it is because when the guy was in his early teens, my brother took lessons from him. My brother was a student at Michigan State at the time, and his teacher had to be driven to their lessons by his mother because he wasn't old enough to drive! Since the following album came out, I haven't heard anything more about him:
Nowadays I have to admit, I know next to nothing about who's who in the classical guitar world.
classical guitar 
I played guitar long ago and then saw Bream, williams and segovia over a 6 month period and gave up. 
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Linear Mode
