Lugosch’s performance is a kickoff to Waynesville Music’s Acoustic Guitar Series, which features intimate concerts with a variety of acoustic guitarists, including fingerstyle players, singer-songwriters, and blues musicians.
The 2025 series lineup also includes classically trained guitarist and sound immersionist Michele Qureshi on June 7; Japanese fingerstylist Hiroya Tsukamoto on Oct. 8; and Cincinnati blues hero Sonny Moorman on Nov. 8.
For 25 years, Lugosch has passed the torch of fingerstyle guitar secrets — from ragtime, swing, blues, folk, and jazz — as a teacher at Chicago’s renowned Old Town School of Folk Music. But his interest in music started much earlier, accessing his older brother’s esoteric record collection with gems like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, later stealing his guitar, too, to spend time eking out the licks of Reverend Gary Davis and Doc Watson — with whom he later shared the stage.
Lugosch has also collaborated with Taj Mahal, John Prine, David Bromberg, Leon Redbone, and others.
Since his formative fingerpicking years, Lugosch has released four albums on the German label Acoustic Music Records. His most recent LP “Migration” was released in 2024. Recorded in three days, he called the record “a very honest album,” as opposed to his other recordings he’d perfected over a six month period.
Frank and to the point, “Migration” captured a moment in time, and who Lugosch was during that moment in time.
Preferring to call himself a “stride player” — a form of fingerstyle that thinks about the guitar as if it were a piano — Lugosch keeps a left hand melody, adding counterpoints and movement in the bass. He’s fluent using two fingers, and is comfortable up to four, opting to not use his pinky much. He employs brush picking, which uses the thumb and index, while also delving into jazz and classical territories.
With just him and his guitar, Lugosch is able to recreate an entire orchestra with two hands.
When asked what it feels like to have that power, to maintain the rhythm and lead at the same time, he said:
“You call it power, I call it like I don’t really have a choice. You get to a certain level and you want to keep up. You don’t want to look back. I’m 66 now. I still have the facility to do the stuff, and that’s not something I take lightly. There’s discipline involved with it, to keep it going.”
Figureheads of the fingerstyle world, like Grammy-nominated Pat Donohue and British fingerstylist Duck Baker, have sung Lugosch’s praises, calling him “one of the very best.”
But Lugosch doesn’t want to be influenced by other guitarists — how they handle arrangements, chord changes, or turns of phrases — so he listens to singers, pianists, horn players, and other linear instrumentation for inspiration.
“I really am a solo guitarist, so I’m trying to play to my strong points,” Lugosch said. “The worst thing for anybody, any musician or artist, is comparing yourself to somebody else. When people start getting on some bandwagon, they lose their originality. You’ve got to cultivate, and keep working on what you’ve got.”
Lugosch has another album in the works, revisiting the flute, guitar and bass trio idea that he’s explored before, to bring in the band element to what he can already do with two hands.
Brandon Berry writes about the Dayton and Southwest Ohio music and art scene. Have a story idea for him? Email branberry100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
What: Waynesville Music’s Acoustic Guitar Series featuring Eric Lugosch
When: 7-8:30 p.m. April 26
Where: Waynesville Music, 198 S. Main St., Waynesville
Cost: $20
Tickets: Eventbrite.com
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