Ottawa Fringe 2011: The Last Gig of Lenny Breau Where the Guitar Tells Us All We Need to Know

Yes, there was his drug use, restlessness and eventual murder. But the late Canadian guitar legend Lenny Breau was, above all else, a musician, and that’s the focus of this fine show by Vancouver’s Colin Godbout. A masterful guitarist himself, when Godbout finger picks tunes from Breau’s catalogue you’d swear they’re both in the room playing at once. Breau, found dead in a Los Angeles swimming pool in 1984, mixed jazz, country, flamenco and more; Godbout does the same in depicting Breau at his last gig, slipping tunes by Merle Travis, John Coltrane and Breau himself into the blend. Godbout also explores the idea that Nashville guitar great Chet Atkins, Breau’s mentor, put far too much pressure on his younger colleague by insisting he was the “great white hope of the guitar,” pressure that contributed to Breau’s retreat into personal mayhem. Breau’s biography needs more fleshing out, and Godbout is more musician than actor, but for now the guitar tells us most of what we need to know.

The Last Gig of Lenny Breau

By and with Colin Godbout

At Royal Oak Laurier, Saturday, June 18