Artist Features
Peter White Releases a New Album, Light of Day
In this JGT interview, Joe Barth goes in-depth with British guitarist Peter White.
Peter White is a British-born (1954) guitarist who is a major figure in the smooth-jazz scene. For twenty years, he was in singer-songwriter Al Stewart’s band, and Peter moved to Los Angeles in his twenties. In the 1990s, Peter focused on his smooth-jazz career and became one of the major artists in this genre. I sat down with Peter to discuss his newest record, Light of Day.
JB: Before I ask about the new album, Light of Day, you haven’t been featured in Jazz Guitar Today. Briefly tell me about yourself. You were born in Luton, England, and then moved to Los Angeles in the late seventies. When did you start to play jazz guitar, and in those early years, briefly, what was most helpful in your personal development as a guitarist?
PW: I was born in Luton, about 40 miles north of London, in 1954, and then my family moved to a nearby town called Letchworth Garden City when I was one year old. My interest in the guitar began when I heard the Beatles on the radio when I was 9 years old. The movie of the Fab Four at Shea Stadium was shown on British Television in 1966 when I was 11 years old, and it was the most exciting thing I’d ever seen at that point. I wanted to be a musician!
I never had a lesson on the guitar, and the way I learned was very incremental. I got my first guitar after hearing the Beatles, and I probably only played the low strings for the first few weeks. It would be many years before I would even attempt to play the high frets on the high strings. Learning to play the guitar was all a mystery to me that revealed itself very slowly.
As a teenager in the 60s, I became influenced by the British blues movement and I followed all the blues-based bands like John Mayall, Cream, Led Zeppelin, and Fleetwood Mac (yes, their first two albums were all blues). Back then, how good you were as a guitar player was judged by how well you could play the blues! Then one day I heard guitarist Steve Howe from the British band Yes, playing on the song “Yours is No Disgrace”. He was playing arpeggios and major and minor scales, and at the age of 16, I was suddenly confronted with the fact that there was a lot more to guitar playing than playing pentatonic blues riffs. I realized that you could play the guitar more like a piano, something that had not occurred to me before.
I had been taking piano lessons for a while, so I applied what I learned on the piano to the guitar and started practicing scales.
Around the same time, I heard “The Boxer” by Simon and Garfunkel and was astounded by the guitar fingerpicking on that song. There was yet another way to play the guitar! I applied myself to learning this technique on my steel-string acoustic Italian-made EKO guitar.
At age 20, I moved to London and met singer Al Stewart, who invited me to play piano in his band. He didn’t know I could play guitar, and he already had a guitar player – being able to play piano got me my first touring gig! Also, being able to play by ear was a real plus, as there were no charts – in fact, during the 20 years I played with Al Stewart, there were never any charts.
After touring with Al Stewart for a few months in 1975, he invited me to my first recording session at Abbey Road Studios in London to record on the album that became “The Year of the Cat”. By this time, he had figured out that I could play guitar, and he suggested that I play nylon string guitar on his song “On The Border”, a life-changing moment. When that album was released, I would still play piano for most of the show and only come out front to play the nylon string guitar for “On the Border,” and that’s what I became known for – I was the guy playing the nylon string guitar!
I probably would not have gravitated towards the nylon string guitar without Al Stewart’s suggestion, and that has become my sound for 50 years now! Thanks, Al!
JB: What are three of the most influential jazz guitar albums to you and your personal development as a guitarist, and why?
My grounding was in rock and blues, as that’s what I heard on the radio and on the few LPs I had. I didn’t start listening to jazz until around age 16, and my mind began to open to the vast possibilities of this new musical landscape!
I bought Joe Pass’ Portraits of Duke Ellington at age 18 and loved it, especially when he played solo guitar, and this influenced me to learn to play solo guitar. The solo guitar medley I sometimes play in my show is totally inspired by Joe Pass.
At age 20, I bought Breezin’ and loved the beautiful, unprocessed guitar playing and the funky grooves. Everything George played was so melodic and effortless – I’m glad to have met him a few times, moments that I will cherish forever!
At age 23, I heard Pat Metheny for the first time and marveled at his inventiveness. He would play longer, extended songs, and this influenced me to do the same, later in my career as a solo artist.
When I heard and admired all these artists, I had no aspiration to become a recording artist myself – that didn’t happen until I was 35. Up till then, I was happy to be just a guy in a band.
JB: You were with singer Al Stewart for about twenty years. What did you appreciate most about being in his touring combo?
PW: Al Stewart encouraged me to play the nylon-string guitar, which has become my sound on most of my recordings, and he let me find my own voice on it. When I was struggling with a certain guitar passage and asked him for guidance, he just said “play it like Peter White”. That was another moment that changed my life – I realized then that I didn’t need to copy anyone else, I didn’t even need to think about how to play, I just emptied my mind, and the notes came out. Music is about feeling, and when you are thinking, you are not feeling, as simple as that!
JB: You have worked with some of Smooth Jazz’s biggest artists. What have you appreciated working with…
Grover Washington Jr.?
PW: Grover was so kind and gracious to me and played with so much feeling. I was in awe of playing beside such a jazz legend, but he totally put me at ease.
Bob James?
PW: Bob is such a musical icon, and I was very honored to work with him on my version of “Mister Magic”, even more so because he played on the original version with Grover!
Dave Sanborn?
PW: David was on my bucket list for years, and in every interview I did, I mentioned that I wanted to record with him. I finally met him at a show in Toronto, and after we talked a while, he said, “We should record a song together,” and I said, “Yes!” I composed the song “Here We Go” specifically for him to play. What makes the song unique is that after I play the first verse in D, we modulate to Eb for him to play the 2nd verse. I thought it would be a better key for the alto, and that the key change would be a welcome surprise so early in the song. Usually, when a song modulates to a higher key, it is near the end, not right after the first verse!
Rick Braun?
PW: I met Rick when he was playing with Sade, as I knew some of the other guys in the band. We became good friends and came up together as instrumental artists in the 90s. Every time I play with him, I marvel at how melodic his playing is. Each phrase has a beginning, middle, and end, which is how phrasing should be, even when improvising! I have played at least 200 shows with Rick over the years, and it’s always a thrill.
JB: On your new album, Light of Day, talk about the track “Catalonia” that opens the album. What connections are there with the Spanish region with the same name?
PW: I visited Spain for the first time in the 1980s while touring with Al Stewart and spent a wonderful day in Barcelona, which is in the region of Catalonia. The song mirrors the feeling I got from the sights and sounds I encountered on that day, many years ago.
JB: Except for a few songs you wrote with a partner, the album consists entirely of your original songs. Did you compose this music for this particular project?
PW: Some songs, like “Catalonia,” I wrote for this project, and others, like “Carefree,” had been percolating in my mind for a long time. On “Carefree,” I only needed David Dyson’s bass line to bring the song to life; it would probably have stayed dormant! “Enchanted” was a song I wrote for this project, for Ernie Watts to play, as he was a favorite of mine for many years. The song “Till I See You Again” was written for my good friend Nick Colionne, who sadly passed away while I was making the album.
JB: You are an excellent tunesmith. Talk briefly about how you go through the compositional process.
PW: Why, thank you! How is a song composed? There are many different ways, but one way is to start sifting through all the myriad of musical ideas that are percolating in your brain. (We are musicians after all, the music in our heads never stops) You try to identify one idea that seems at the same time original and appealing. It could be a bass line, a drumbeat, a chord pattern, or a melody. Oftentimes, it is just a few seconds long, or two bars in musical parlance. If you listen to my songs, you’ll notice that the way each song starts is usually the first idea I had. So you take those few seconds and repeat them in your head, or on a piano, or on a guitar, and because that’s all you have, you keep repeating. “Promenade,” for instance, is one of my most enduring songs – I have been opening my show with it for over 30 years. It started as a 2-bar riff over a 3-chord pattern, repeated over and over – until I got tired of the repetition and forced myself to come up with another idea to complement the first idea, which turned out to be a simple ascending melody over the chords of the riff. I discovered that I could keep alternating the two ideas – the melody line, then the original riff. We now have the first verse of the song. Soon, I realized I had to write another part to extend the song beyond about 20 seconds. So, I played the same ascending melody, but this time in a higher key over a rising chord pattern. The song was now taking shape. I added a few more elements, and it was done!
There is always a battle between repetition and innovation in music. Today’s pop music, I find, is mostly repetitive and not innovative enough. But young people seem to like it, and maybe they are identifying with the lyrics. I was never too much into listening to lyrics until I started listening to Joni Mitchell in the 70s. For the first time in my life, I was listening to song lyrics, and I was also enthralled by her musical ideas, which always seemed very innovative!
JB: In your live shows, you do some tasteful solo guitar renditions of Beatles, Bee Gees, Joni Mitchell, and other songs from the 60s and 70s. I hope you are planning a solo guitar record of this kind.
PW: I love playing solo guitar as an antidote to all the big bam boom of the band – the drums and bass mostly, but I don’t think I would record an entire album of solo guitar – after a few songs I want to hear the other instruments!
JB: Talk about your musical relationship with your friend DC.
PW: DC helped me when I was trying to learn digital recording, and it has been a very fruitful relationship – he will come up with musical ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of. He has helped me with my recordings for over 20 years now, and he certainly helped me a lot on the Light of Day album, coming up with musical parts and sounds.
JB: What special musical satisfaction do you find in working with your touring band?
PW: I don’t have a full-time touring band, so I play with different musicians all the time. This results in my songs sounding slightly different every time I play them. I enjoy those small variations – it makes the experience of performing more interesting. I tell the guys, “You don’t have to play it like the recording, as long as it’s musical. Just have fun with it!”
JB: What do you appreciate most about the Paul McGill guitar you play?
PW: Paul McGill has designed a nylon string acoustic guitar that sounds like an acoustic guitar when amplified and resists feedback on stage, a feature that I really appreciate, as I am often in high-level sound environments. I have 4 of his guitars, and they have changed my life. The guitar is called a Super Ace nylon-string model, and it features a GO Audio pickup that Paul and his team designed, which means I can get an onstage sound every bit as good as my recorded sound.
JB: Talk about the title track, “Light of Day,” that closes the album. There are some interesting melodic, question-and-answer elements going on in that song.
PW: The song “Light if Day” is about hope. In the darkest moments, things may look bleak, but that is when you have to remind yourself that the daylight is coming. I wrote the song with my friend Frank Joseph during the Covid pandemic. He originated the track, and what appealed to me about it were chords and voicing that created tension – minor 5th intervals, for instance. We are working on a full album together right now, which we hope to release later this year.
JB: We don’t have the Smooth Jazz radio stations like we used to. What are some of your greatest challenges in getting your music “out there?”
PW: I have worked with Cliff and Jason Gorov of Gorov Music Marketing to promote my music since my first release in 1990. They got me on the radio, and that’s what kicked off my solo career at age 35. Nowadays, most of the radio stations that gave me my start are gone, but streaming has taken over, and people can find my music this way. The Watercolors station on Sirius XM also plays my music, which keeps me in the loop.
Art Good of the JazzTrax radio show made the “Light of Day” CD his favorite CD of 2025. Art was the first person ever to interview me on the radio when my first CD came out, and he has also presented me at his long-running Catalina Island JazzTrax Festival many times. Thanks, Art!
Mostly, I’m glad to be in good health and still making music. I turned 71 recently, and I’m just content to make the music I like and hope people find it!
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