Peter Van Wood

**Peter Van Wood** (1927–2010) was a Dutch-Italian guitarist, singer, and songwriter who carved a unique path in music history. Born Pieter van Houten in The Hague, he picked up the guitar at 14, studied at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and became a pioneer of electric guitar effects like echo and reverb by the mid-1940s. His globe-trotting career took him from the London Palladium (1946) to Carnegie Hall (1947–48) before he settled in Italy in 1949, where he co-founded the influential Trio Carosone with pianist Renato Carosone and drummer Gegè Di Giacomo, later expanding to a quartet with Elek Bacsik. Beyond music, he doubled as an astrologer and actor, leaving behind recordings like *Tre numeri al lotto* and *La musica delle stelle* that blended jazz, rock, and theatrical flair, often played on his signature Gretsch White Falcon guitar.

While specific details about his later releases like *Peter Van Wood: Le origini* aren’t fully verifiable in our records, his legacy remains that of a genre-blurring innovator who brought experimental guitar work to mainstream European audiences during the postwar era.

Genres