March 11-17, 2004 MUSICPICKS

JOHNNY A.

blues

Guitarist Johnny A. is proof that you don't have to be flashy to make a big statement. His 2000 instrumental debut, Sometime Tuesday Morning, brought more attention to the Boston-club-scene veteran than he'd ever gotten as Peter Wolf's longtime sideman. Inspired by a pantheon of '50s and '60s guitar deities -- Chet Atkins, Les Paul and Scotty Moore among them -- A. (for Antonopoulos) has both restraint and passion in his playing. "I let the guitar be the vocalist," he says by phone. "When I play, I deliver the melody like a singer. Only it's with my guitar." And what a guitar it is -- a hollow-bodied $5,000-plus electric that A. got to help design last year as one of Gibson's signature models.

His just-released sophomore effort, Get Inside, is more "in the street" in its vibe than the first record, says A., but like its predecessor, features his own gotta-have-soul compositions along with some well-chosen covers -- in this case, Johnny Rivers' "Poor Side of Town" and an acid-jazz take on Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary."

"I saw Hendrix when I was a kid and he blew me away," A. says. "I'm not trying to compete with him with my version; I'm just giving back a little of what he gave me."

Thu., March 11, 7 and 9:30 p.m., $17.50-$20, with Oh Susanna, The Point, 880 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 866-468-7619.

—Nicole Pensiero