Artist description "Electric Minstrel" is an experiment in a wide variety of musical influences, from heavy metal to psychedelic to medieval & Renaissance to jazz & blues to Middle eastern melodies and percussion.

Music Style Eclectic progressive hard rock/metal

Musical Influences Black Sabbath, Rush, Loreena McKennitt, Rainbow, Blackmore's Night, Dream Theater, Mahogany Rush, Pink Floyd, Queen, Jethro Tull

Similar Artists Black Sabbath, Rush, Loreena McKennitt, Rainbow, Blackmore's Night, Dream Theater, Mahogany Rush, Pink Floyd, Queen, Jethro Tull

Artist History Brett started off playing guitar in early 1981, taking lessons at a small music store in Olney, MD, called "Lothlorien Music". Oddly enough, his first lesson occurred on the same day Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley. He studied rock, jazz, blues and classical styles during this period. After dropping out of college, he went in and out of playing music and trying to further his professional career in computers. In the early 90s, after several unsuccessful attempts at putting together musical groups, he became increasingly interested in Middle Eastern culture and music, and began studying the dumbek and other traditions in Middle Eastern music. Coupled with interests in music from the medieval and Renaissance periods, several things started gelling. And now that he had a successful and well-paid career in software engineering, he began to put together a recording studio and accumulate a wide variety of exotic instruments, including the Finnish kantele, hurdy-gurdy, plucked psaltry and laouta (a type of lute). With that in place, and a wealth of musical ideas literally bursting from his soul, he began to record...

Group Members So far, the only member of "Electric Minstrel" is Brett W. McCoy, who plays all of the instruments, but is also seeking to work with other instrumentalists and vocalists.

Instruments Guitar (electric and acoustic), bass, digital keyboards, drum machine, kantele, laouta, zurna, dumbek, riq

Location Germantown, MD - USA

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).