High Strung

High Strung is the next installment of country guitarist Matt Rae's Tele-drenched musical output, an eleven track instrumental release. Inspired by his mentor and teacher Arlen Roth (Rae played in the Arlen Roth band), Rae pulls out all the stops to delight and entertain. Matt's trademark guitar is his '63 Esquire with an added neck pickup. He had always wanted a vintage Tele and Roth helped him decide on this one. Rae also uses a hollow body guitar built by Rob Engel. "This guitar has inspired me to write more bluesy jazz songs and is also great for country and surf music." Another guitar Matt has been using is a blue paisely Tele clone from Crook Custom Guitars. "It has a one piece maple neck which gives it a different tone than my Esquire. I'm using all three guitars on my new CD." Rae has been featured twice in 20th Century Guitar magazine and three times in Vintage Guitar, and even found a spot among the pages of Guitar Player magazine after being one of the finalists in their 2005 Guitar Hero competition.