Up Close & Personal

vicki genfan (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD
• ASIN: B000OEBC7M
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #273,081 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the "Gotta Have it" CD's of the year, December 6, 2008

By 

Deb Fischer "dfischer" (Southern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 'up Close & Personal' - Double Cd! (MP3 Download)

This has to be the best CD I've heard in years. Vicki is a fantastic guitarist/musician/ singer/ songwriter. This will not disappoint. Buy it for someone who loves guitar music and get a copy for yourself as they will not want to share.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully unique and eclectic music, October 1, 2008

By 

Mark Mohr "Mark Mohr in Spokane" (Spokane, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 'up Close & Personal' - Double Cd! (MP3 Download)

I read about Vicki Genfan in a Sept. 16, 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal. The story was about Guitar Magazine's fourth annual Superstar Competition held at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. Vicki Genfan not only won the contest, but she blew away the judges with her music. I ordered the CD the next day. "Up Close and Personal" is actually a two-CD set. #1 is almost exclusively instrumental with minimum vocals. It leads off with "Atomic Reshuffle", the tune she played at the SF contest. Wow! It's stunning music. Her guitar shimmers with a brightness of sound that I hadn't heard for a while. (Kind of reminds me of Michael Hedges.) When she combines her self-described "flap tap" style that combines percussion and harmonic elements, the CD is dazzling. I worked my way through every cut on CD #1 and moved on to CD #2, which is more of a traditional band performance with vocals and background singers in harmony. Normally, I prefer instrumental music but to be honest, her songs are growing on me. Her covers of traditional songs ("Norwegian Wood") are breathtakingly different and her lyrics definitely have some unexpectedly ironic twists and turns. Her website describes her music as "folk meets funk" and I guess that's as good a description as any. This is highly recommended for people interested in expanding their musical horizon. Congratulations to Vicki for winning the guitar contest and for coming out with such a terrific CD set!

5.0 out of 5 stars A guitarist's guitarist pioneering an original slap-tap sound, June 9, 2009

By 

Thomas W. Sulcer (Summit, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Up Close & Personal (Audio CD)

I heard Vicki Genfan perform last Saturday and was highly impressed with her unique, creative, rhythmic guitar style. "Who would have thought anybody could play this way?" asked Ahrre (pronounced: "R"), a local music promoter and coffee connoisseur, and his question hits paydirt. Her style is ORIGINAL AND FRESH. The intimate gathering included many amateur guitarists. By using harmonics, finger-picking, slapping and tapping the guitar's body, hammer-ons, alternative tunings and capos, Ms. Genfan pioneers an original way to play guitar and expands the possibilities of this instrument. Visit YouTube and type "Atomic Reshuffle Vicki Genfan" and you'll hear what I mean. Her right hand works as hard as her left, dancing over the strings with a wonderful sensibility she calls "slap-tap", not "flap-tap" -- she explained that a Wall Street Journal reporter misquoted her.

Not only a performer and songwriter, Ms. Genfan is an informal salesperson for Luna guitars. The guitar she played last Saturday was specially crafted for her with condenser mikes and MIDI capability installed inside the sound hole, and an acoustic body narrower at the top -- making it easier to wrap her right strumming hand over the guitar and access the strings. Light touching of the strings was all it took to create a terrific sound.

As a performer, Ms. Genfan communicates a friendly intimacy. She's like a close friend playing in your living room after a long absence. Her between-the-songs patter is unplanned, fresh, although it could be tighter and funnier. After each song, she re-tuned her guitar -- she has 31 alternative tunings in total -- and explained that she had to wait for freshly re-tuned strings to hold their new pitches. But these moments of downtime could be more ably exploited with funny stories or patter. Why do guitarists like David Wilcox not seem to have this problem after re-tuning? She seems like a reluctant artist, wondering whether she should be playing old songs in public or privately exploring new sounds?

She's strongest when performing original instrumental tunes because her guitar and unique playing style become the star. When performing cover tunes, she's less interesting. She appears un-coached by professionals -- at key moments in songs, she shuts her eyes and tilts her head back so the highest point on stage is a view of her upturned nostrils -- but closing her eyes sometimes breaks any connection with the audience, and a professional coach might advise against such maneuvers. She seems mesmerized by her own playing, and singing might distract from her fancy finger-work. She's not really a singer-songwriter seeking to connect emotionally with an audience through creative poetry and images and feelings, but rather a terrific craftsman showing fellow craftsmen what a guitar can do, and in this regard, she shines. Her best song: Atomic Reshuffle. No doubt we'll be hearing her music in movie soundtracks or in commercials.

Thomas W. Sulcer
Author of "The Second Constitution of the United States"
(free on web; google title + Sulcer)