Many guitarists know Al DiMeola as the Ovation-playing virtuoso that made the Friday Night In San Francisco album with Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin such a player’s delight, but he actually started out as a fusion prodigy on the electric guitar. The black Les Paul he used with supergroup Return To Forever in the mid-seventies followed him on his classic solo album Elegant Gypsy in 1977, before his stacatto technique brought him to the acoustic.