AGW FounderSteve Elliott was born in London in 1957, into a musical family. His father was a conductor and concert pianist and his mother was a professional singer, who was once in a duo with the well known classical guitarist, John Williams. Steve first picked up a guitar at the age of 9 and studied classical guitar for a while. This gave him an excellent grounding in fingerstyle technique.

Bach, Beethoven and Mozart were always in the background, but as a youngster Steve grew up with the music of The Beatles, The Stones, Jmi Hendrix etc and so it was natural that Steve’s guitar journeys took him in the direction of Blues and Rock. Surprised to learn that The Rolling Stones didn’t actually write ‘Little Red Rooster’, Steve was inspired to look back at the geneology of the Blues through such characters as Robert Johnson, Blind Blake, Rev Gary David, Big Bill Broonzy and a host of other great Blues men and women. Thus began a lifelong study of Country Blues. Of course, being British, there was also the English Fingerstyle school to consider in such luminaries as Bert Jansch, Davey Graham, John Renbourne and Martin Carthy.

All these influences contribute and inform Steve’s ongoing project with the Acoustic Guitar Workshop, a website he started in 1999. AGW, as it is now known, teaches and promotes fingerstyle guitar. A partnership with Truefire began in 2004 when the best-selling 60Day Fingerstyle Blues Camp was produced. This was followed by Bluenotes, Fingerstyle Encores, Fingerstyle Fusion, Fingerstyle Repertoires and Roots Rags & Blues.

Steve now lives in Moscow, Russia, where he teaches, continues to run (obsessionally!) the Acoustic Guitar Workshop and plays the odd acoustic gig.