Amy Kerwin
Kottke is one of the nation’s finest practitioners of the finger-picking style.
According to fans, Leo Kottke may be the world’s consummate acoustic guitarist. A child of the ‘60s folk scene, native of Athens, Georgia, and longtime Twin Cities resident, sets the bar with his finger-picking style of playing. He is primarily an instrumentalist, but has been known occasionally to sing in a voice he describes as “geese farts on a muggy day.”
Kottke, now 73, picked up the guitar at age 11 after experimenting with the violin and trombone. He holds an honorary doctorate in music performance from UW-Milwaukee, where he conducts annual guitar workshops, and a “Certificate of Significant Achievement in Not Playing the Trombone” from the University of Texas at Brownsville.
Kottke, who appears March 30 at the Stoughton Opera House, took time to answer a few questions for Isthmus.
You’re generally considered to have a style all your own. From what genres do you draw your influences?
A guitar sounds good if you just drop it on the floor. I listen to everything and really don’t think there are musical styles. I just write what I can, finding a tune that touches a place nothing else reaches.
Whose music do you listen to?
I listen to Bill Evans, Iris Dement, a lot of Pat Metheny, more Bill Evans. Musicians just as beings are real question marks. What made (Polish musician) Wanda Landowska step up to a harpsichord? What made Schubert write when he was flaking away from syphilis and never really heard any of his music performed? We depend on these people, but we don’t know where they’re coming from.
Metheny was a trumpet player before he was a guitarist. Did your days with the trombone inform your guitar playing?
I can’t really know; everything carries over, including whatever I had for lunch. But I did learn a little harmony, a little structure, and I learned about playing with other people, which is probably why I play solo now. But the trombone did teach me that playing is a privilege, even if — or especially if — you’re playing alone in an empty room.
You suffered hearing loss early on. How has that affected your approach to musical composition?
I don’t think people who have all their hearing could tell you how that affects their compositions. Music is not human, but it’s something humans love. We hear it with everything we’ve got, or everything we’ve got left.
How do you know when one of your compositions is finally finished?
I find these tunes, and they tell me when it’s over. A few of them continue to grow, and that’s very unsettling. I’ll look and, sure enough, I’ve usually forced the tune somewhere, had some big idea, instead of listening to the piece. You can tell when a door doesn’t close right, so you give it another yank. That’s what writing is. It’s a fit. Your body gets happy.
What would you like to do, musically and personally, that you haven’t yet done?
I like the idea of one more breath.
