With inspirations ranging from Andres Segovia to Mississippi John Hurt, Ed Gerhard is one of the true masters of steel string fingerstyle guitar. A Philadelphia native now residing in New Hampshire, Ed was inspired by the late guitarist John Fahey to develop his own compositional voice, which he explores in performance with 6-string, 12-string, and slide guitars, Hawaiian Lap Steel, a passionate intensity and a sly sense of humor. The Boston Globe declared that "Ed does not write instrumentals. He writes songs that only a guitar can sing." Melodic and cliche-free, his lush playing travels in unexpected directions, conveying classic sensibilities or inflections of the blues. Ed, who can also be heard on recordings by Arlo Guthrie and Bill Morrissey, returns to the Freight tonight with tunes new and old, many of them from his seventh album, House of Guitars. Warner Brothers also released The Ed Gerhard Guitar Songbook and instructional CD this summer, featuring Ed's beautiful solo arrangements of traditional tunes like "The Water is Wide" and "Wild Mountain Thyme."