I first met Lenny Breau in the early eighties. We were introduced by the late guitarist, Richard Cotton, who was one of Lenny's biggest fans and sponsors. Richard often provided for Lenny's basic needs when he was visiting Nashville. Richard had booked some performance dates for Lenny in local venues and asked me to join him.

Playing with Lenny, particularly in a duo setting, was always a wonderful challenge. We might be floating along on a lovely 4/4 treatment of a well-known song when suddenly Lenny would go out of tempo and play it as a waltz for a chorus or two. As I recall, he did just that on You Needed Me, the lovely Anne Murray melody included in this collection of Country standards. Sometimes he'd take a left turn and play the melody with a Classical guitar treatment for 8 bars or so. I remember hearing a recording that Chet Atkins had of Lenny playing the old song, Freight Train. He covered so many musical styles in just a few choruses of that timeworn melody. I was always amazed and amused at his spontaneous imagination and on-the-fly compositional skills. One story I was told was that Lenny grew up listening to Chet Atkins and Bill Evans, the wonderful Jazz pianist. He was certainly a beautiful collage of many musical influences, but he melded all those into his own unmistakable voice.

I'll be forever grateful for the opportunities I had to work with Lenny. Despite his personal struggles I found him to be a sensitive and warm-hearted person as well as a giving musician. I miss him dearly.
Jim Ferguson