Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke
Leo Kottkeis an acoustic guitarist. He is known for a fingerpicking style that draws on blues, jazz, and folk music, and for syncopated, polyphonic melodies. He overcame a series of personal obstacles, including partial loss of hearing and a nearly career-ending bout with tendon damage in his right hand to emerge as a widely recognized master of his instrument. He currently resides in the Minneapolis area with his family...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth11 September 1945
CityAthens, GA
CountryUnited States of America
I seem to find different material every four to six months and I frequently forget it which is a shame because it would be nice to have a bigger library.
Yeah I do and I don't mind, in fact that is one of the real encouraging things about this whole career of mine is that there are tunes I wrote almost thirty years ago that I will still play in front of an audience and I still like the old tunes.
It is another universe. ... It's encouraging to find out that you can still flex. I did have the hunch that I had probably developed some rock-hard habits by now. But it's not like that at all.
If you get really worn out that's frequently a good way to get an idea because your usual noise isn't happening and they can come through easier.
I don't spend a lot of time thinking of what they'll do musically, I try to imagine being locked into a windowless room with this person for twelve hours at a time. If you can look at that and think it might be fun then maybe you've got the right musician.
I was taking a nose dive somewhere between eleven and twelve because my sister had died and I was practicing something that siblings do which is follow in their footsteps and die as well.
I was required by Capital to release one every six months and the fastest I could do with all my touring was every nine months, and it would spook me every time because I never had what I needed and I really didn't want to do covers.
Musically, I am still hooked and just hypnotized by the sound of the guitar itself. I mean, a guitar sounds good if you drop it on the floor.
I do have a library of events I can talk about and I always expect to find a different point of view on it so even if I talk about the same event in the same town it's fresh.
When the audience is awful you can still have a great night and people will walk out thinking they had a great time even though there was loads of loudmouths and the sound was terrible.
You can't really tell what the audience wants but you can tell what will keep everybody's attention in the same place.
With all these great (guitar teachers) around here, don't cop their licks, COP THEIR ATTITUDE.
The bulk of my set is instrumental and you have to give yourself and the audience some relief because a performance is not about great guitar playing it's really about entertainment.
I would say that if you don't feel like talking to the crowd something is wrong and if you force yourself to talk to them things will happen and to that extent things aren't choreographed.