Guitar – Drew Bentley
Drew has been playing the guitar for about 37 years. He taught his first guitar lesson in 1986, while learning music at C.C.A.C. Only a few years after studying Jazz guitar at Duquesne University, Drew was able to make guitar instruction his full time occupation. Drew has been a full time guitar teacher since 1997. Eight years into full time private teaching, in 2005, Drew established, and still operates, Bentley & Romito Professional Music Lessons. He continues to offer private lessons, with a sustained passion to share music.
Mr. Bentley held the guitar instructor position, for introductory guitar, at the Community College of Allegheny County and was the guitar instructor at Camp Jam, Pittsburgh in 2011. Drew has studied the guitar with: Joe Negri, Ken Karsh, Mark Koch, John Maione, Bill Purse, and Jim Held. While teaching guitar at Bentley & Romito, Drew has been active in the community by sponsoring the guitar club at Penn Middle school, being a career day speaker at Franklin Regional, and running the Bentley & Romito PTARC open stage. Along with guitar instruction, Drew has been busy making a name for himself by recording and performing live music. Drew has performed with a few dozen bands over the years, in hundreds of venues, and in multiple states. He currently plays with: the Drew Bentley Band, doing original rock, blues and jazz; City Heat, a variety dance/wedding band; Dreamscape, a variety dance/wedding band, JD Strum and he performs solo shows as well, original music, instrumental popular tracks, jazz and acoustic, singer songwriter. Drew released “Bold Horizon” in 2019, an instrumental album of original music. The album has received much love, national album reviews, and radio airplay. Another original project, JD Strum, released an original record, in 2004 entitled Just Another Story. The record was cowritten by Mr. Bentley. JD Strum opened for Dave Matthews, Sister Hazel, Brett Michaels (Poison), Kansas, Deep Purple, Carbon Leaf, and Low Millions. With the Kiger band, Drew has shared the stage with Gretchen Wilson, Big and Rich and Molly Hatchet. He has performed on many radio stations, most notably 102.5 WDVE, on the Morning Show. Drew has also released an E.P in 2011 of original music. Drew was the winner of the Guitar Center “King of the Blues” Contest three times; 2005 and 2006 and 2009, for district 802. With JD Strum, he won the Pittsburgh Songwriters Contest in 2004, along with multiple other contests for prizes and studio time. After you sign up, listen to Drew’s music at drewbentley.com and read his story at drewbentleysongs.com, sign up for his email list, check show dates, see gear photos and much more. Be sure to take a look at “Drew Bentley Guitar”, Drew’s YouTube guitar lesson channel for additional instruction! I love and strive to share what I’ve learned from 25 years of teaching private guitar lessons! I really enjoy teaching one on one and want to help as many people as I can along their path of learning to play guitar. I teach lessons on a multitude of different topics, techniques, and songs from many genres, styles. My goal is to help the brand new student from purchasing the right axe, learning to play their very first song, all the way to the advanced player looking to take it up a notch. Teaching guitar is the most rewarding career possible. Many of my students have gone on to study guitar in a university setting and or have carved out a successful performance career of their own. I look forward to being your guitar instructor!