Chris Standring

. On Electric Wonderland, Standring's longtime fans, as well as guitar aficionados, may recognize that he's doing two new things here. The first is that, in keeping with the CD s title, he s traded his archtop jazz guitar which imparts a much more acoustic sound for a Fender Stratocaster, whose strings and solid-body infuses his music with a more expressive sound. The Fender Strat guitar gives you an electric quality, Standring says. Because I m a jazz player, I wanted to get a jazz sound out of that instrument, but to be expressive in the way a rock guitarist might, such as with bending the strings. The other thing Standring did on Electric Wonderland was to throw away his pick, for the most part. This leads to a difference in tone and an enhanced personal and intimate experience for the listener.