Don Ross (CA)

About

Also known as: Donald James Ross

Don Ross plays fingerstyle guitar with such authority that he remains the only person to have won the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship twice, taking top honours in both 1988 and 1996. His style pulls from blues, jazz, folk and classical music into something he calls "heavy wood", built on percussive techniques and intricate thumb patterns that have influenced a whole generation of competitive acoustic guitarists. Bruce Cockburn put it well when he wrote that nobody does what Don Ross does with an acoustic guitar. Ross was the first artist to sign with Candyrat Records in 2005, a label that went on to shape the modern fingerstyle scene. He has recorded for Duke Street, Columbia and Narada, and his album Huron Street cracked the top ten on the Billboard New Age chart. In 2021 he completed a Master of Arts in Orchestration and won the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts. His 2023 album WATER brought together collaborators including Bruce Cockburn, Michael Manring and the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.