Leo Kottke

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Leo Kottke (2007)

Leo Kottke (born September 11, 1945 in Athens , Georgia ) is an American virtuoso on the acoustic six- and twelve-string guitar , who in his more than 45-year career became a style-maker for a number of subsequent guitarists. Kottke merged Folk - Country - Bluegrass - and Blue influences a characteristic fingerpicking - polyphonic style music, especially at the beginning strongly on the Bottleneck - was marked technology. From the 1980s took Kottke much of the New Age - Instrumental music movement anticipated and is often considered part of the American-Primitivism - saw movement - partly because he in John Fahey's Takoma stood label under contract. Kottke struggled with health problems for a long time, including partial numbness and tendinitis on his hands.

life and work

As a teenager in Muskogee, Oklahoma , Kottke played the trombone and violin before switching to the guitar and developing his own characteristic fingerpicking style. In a fireworks accident, his hearing in one ear was permanently damaged, made worse by target practice while serving with the United States Naval Reserve . After being released from the Naval Reserve , Kottke attended St. Cloud State University in central Minnesota , where he often skipped lectures to play guitar instead.

Although his focus is on instrumental compositions, Kottke used his unconventional, sonorous baritone , which he himself referred to as "goose farts on a dreary day", mainly on some of the early albums . In his solo concerts, Kottke offers a selection of vocal and instrumental pieces from several decades, played on specially made six- and twelve-string guitars, whereby he regularly loosens up his musical performance with humorous, surreal remarks. While he often preferred open tunings in the early stages of his career , in recent years he has increasingly used more traditional tunings, although he often tunes his guitars up to two whole tones below the standard tuning.

Kottke's best-known album is 6- and 12-String Guitar from 1969, also known as the “Armadillo Album” because of the armadillo depicted on the cover . Urged by his record company in the early 1970s to become a folk songwriter rather than a pure instrumentalist, he recorded albums such as Mudlark, Ice Water and Chewing Pine with accompanying musicians . Some of the recording techniques from this period are now obsolete, and in recent years Kottke has begun to re-record various pieces from the early 1970s. For example, One Guitar, No Vocals from 1999 includes a new instrumental version of Morning Is the Long Way Home from 1974, which brings out the counter-melody that was hidden behind the vocals on the older recording.

Constant concert and studio activity took its toll on Kottke in the early 1980s, and he suffered from painful tendonitis and associated nerve damage that jeopardized the continuation of his career. He changed his picking style from a folk-based approach (with fingerpicks ) to a more classic style (with fingertips and less and less use of fingernails, as well as a different posture of the right hand) that puts less strain on the tendons. At the same time he switched from the larger labels Capitol and Chrysalis to the smaller private music label, and his music became increasingly lyrical and less excessive. Due to this change of style and his relationship with Private Music Kottke's work was often out of this phase as a New Age Music in Windham Hill- characterized style, although his music was too eclectic and edgy to fit into this category.

Kottke has collaborated on his records with his mentor John Fahey , Chet Atkins , Lyle Lovett , Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies , the Violent Femmes and Rickie Lee Jones . In addition to his own compositions, he has recorded pieces by Tom T. Hall , Johnny Cash , Carla Bley , Fleetwood Mac , The Byrds , Jorma Kaukonen , Kris Kristofferson , Randall Hylton and many others. He is also a frequent guest on the US radio show A Prairie Home Companion .

In 2002 Kottke worked with Mike Gordon (bassist of the band Phish ) on Clone , an album with instrumental and vocal pieces by both musicians. A second album with Gordon, Sixty Six Steps, followed in 2005, and the duo toured with both programs.

Discography

Albums

  • 12 String Blues (1968) - Oblivion
  • 6- and 12-String Guitar (1969) - Takoma
  • Circle 'Round the Sun (1970) Symposium
  • Mudlark (1971) - Capitol
  • Greenhouse (1972)
  • My Feet Are Smiling (1973)
  • Ice Water (1974)
  • Leo Kottke / Peter Lang / John Fahey (1974) - Takoma
  • Dreams and All That Stuff (1974) - Capitol
  • Chewing Pine (1974)
  • Leo Kottke (1976) - Chrysalis
  • Burnt Lips (1978)
  • Balance (1979)
  • Live in Europe (1980)
  • Guitar Music (1981)
  • Time Step (1983)
  • A Shout Toward Noon (1986) - Private Music
  • Regards From Chuck Pink (1988)
  • My Father's Face (1989)
  • That's What (1990)
  • Essential Leo Kottke (1991, compilation; period: 1976–1983) - Chrysalis
  • Great Big Boy (1992) - Private Music
  • Peculiaroso (1994)
  • Live (1995) - On the Spot
  • Live in Europe (1995)
  • Standing in My Shoes (1997)
  • One Guitar, No Vocals (1999)
  • The Best (2002, compilation; period: 1973–1978)
  • Clone (Leo Kottke, Mike Gordon, 2002) - RCA Victor
  • Try and Stop Me (2004)
  • Sixty Six Steps (Leo Kottke, Mike Gordon, 2005)

DVDs

  • Leo Kottke - Home & Away Revisited (2003)
  • Fingerstyle Guitar: New Dimensions & Explorations Vol. 1 (2010)

literature

  • Barry Graves / Siegfried Schmidt-Joos: Das neue Rock-Lexikon , p. 439 f. Completely revised and expanded new edition. rororo Handbuch 6320, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 1990. ISBN 3-499-16321-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Graves / Schmidt-Joos: Das neue Rock-Lexikon , Vol. 1, p. 439 f.
personal data
SURNAME Kottke, Leo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American musician
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Athens (Georgia)