"I had this fascination with strings," says Ritenour, 58, who grew up in Los Angeles in the musically wide-open 1960s, listening to jazz, rock, funk, blues, Brazilian and classical music. "I could go from Segovia to Wes Montgomery to Jimi Hendrix in a breath. That kind of permeated my musical adventures for the last 50 years. I've always had a passion for any good guitar playing."

6 String Theory