Isaac Guillory

concert-going these past 30 years that such a slight figure as Guillory's could contain so much music of so many different styles. On hearing of his death on Hogmanay at the age of 53, one of his colleagues described Guillory as ''a dynamo''. It's an over-used term, but in this case it's

an understatement.

Guillory was born on the US air base at Guantanamo Bay on February 27, 1947, and moved with his family to the United States in time to be excited by rock'n'roll's early stirrings.

Having taken up guitar and piano, he studied music theory and composition at the Roose-velt University School of Music and then reverted to rock by joining Chicago band the Cryan Shames, playing bass guitar and piano on two of their albums in the late 1960s, before relocating

to London.

In 1971, Guillory joined Al Stewart on stage at the Cambridge Folk Festival and almost immediately his phone began to ring with offers of session work. He toured and recorded with Elkie Brooks, recorded with Donovan, and, in 1973, released a solo album on Atlantic Records which, though it sold modestly, gained his acoustic-guitar talents further attention.

Shortly afterwards, he emphasised his versatility by replacing the legendary session man, Big Jim Sullivan, in New Zealander Dave MacRae's jazz-rock band Pacific Eardrum, recording two well-received albums for Genesis's label Charisma, and, while working as musical director for Barbara Dickson, he wrote The Guitar Handbook, a comprehensive tutor book which served as the foundation for BBC television's Rock School programme.

During his spell with Dickson he also played on the bard of Lochee, Michael Marra's, first album, The Midas Touch, an experience which clearly made an impression, as some years later Guillory recorded his

own version of a song from

that album, Take Me Out Drinking Tonight.

It's an almost inevitable side-effect that while enhancing other people's efforts galore - Mick Jagger, Joan Baez, Peter Sarstedt, Trevor Horn, and Nick Heyward were among Guillory's other clients - session musicians' own work is often invisible in record shops.

Guillory was certainly never over-exposed, and while albums such as Easy reflect his consummate ability in the studio by veering towards the sort of music that accompanies TV holiday programmes, the live Slow Down found him in, perhaps literally, blistering solo form, accompanying Mystery Train with furious guitar locomotion, managing to sound like Paul Simon's whole band on Late in the Evening, juxtaposing convincing swing jazz with reflective folk songs and even invoking some learned-in-childhood Spanish on La Bamba.

In short, it's the sort of dynamic, eclectic, virtuoso stuff that those who caught Guillory's guitar duets with John Renbourn,

during one of his last Scottish gigs at Ullapool Guitar Festival in October, will cherish.