Pierre BensusanIF YOU GO¦ What: Guitarist Pierre Bensusan.¦ When: 7:30 p.m. today, April 3.¦ Where: Barking Legs Theater, 1307 Dodds Ave.¦ Admission: $15 in advance, $18 at the door.¦ Phone: 423-624-5347¦ Website: www.barkinglegs.org.DISCOGRAPHY¦ 1975-79: “Pres de Paris,” “Pierre Bensusan 2,” “Musiques”¦ 1981-88: “Solilai,” “Spices”¦ 1993-97: “Wu Wei,””Live au New Morning/Live in Paris”¦ 2001-13: “Intuite,” “An Evening With Inter-national Guitar Night,” “Altiplanos,” “Vividly,” “Encore”COMING UP¦ What: Wide Open Floor, a monthly performing-arts showcase for dancers, poets, musicians.¦ When: 8 p.m. Friday, April 4.¦ Where: Barking Legs Theater.¦ Admission: $5, cash preferred.
When Pierre Bensusan was 12 years old, he decided he was going to play guitar for the rest of his life.
Bensusan’s parents, French-Algerians who immigrated to Paris in the ’60s, took the declaration with a dismissive grain of salt. His father said nothing. His mother, a mathematics teacher, nodded her head and told him he could do whatever he wanted after he attended university.
This was no idle fantasy, however, and Bensusan wasn’t building a castle of air. He knew his fate as surely as his nimble fingers knew his instrument’s wooden curves.
“I said, ‘No, no. You don’t get it, momma. That’s not exactly what I have planned,'” he recalls responding. For the next four years, he made an annual birthday tradition of counting down to when he would be old enough to drop out of school and pursue his dream.