Leo Kottke

Twelve states and a guitar

Leo Kottke was born on September 11, 1945 in Athens, Georgia, and was raised in 12 states because his family moved so often; in Muskogee, Oklahoma, he was influenced by folk and delta blues, notably Mississippi John Hurt. His first instruments were trombone and violin, and Bill Kopp reports that the trombone gave him a feel for chord construction. He studied briefly at the University of Missouri and St. Cloud State College, arrived at the Scholar Coffeehouse in Minneapolis in 1966, and became a regular. In early 1968 he sent a tape of 6- and 12-string guitar to John Fahey's Takoma label, and 6- and 12-String Guitar came out in December 1969, recorded in one afternoon at Empire Photo-Sound in Minneapolis, mostly in single takes.

He signed with Capitol for Mudlark (1971), made in a garage studio in Nashville, and released Greenhouse (1972), Ice Water (1973), the live My Feet Are Smiling (1973) and Chewing Pine (1975). In 1976 he moved to Chrysalis with his manager and producer Denny Bruce for Leo Kottke, with arrangements by Jack Nitzsche, then Burnt Lips (1978), recorded at his home with Sound 80's mobile unit. He played the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977, toured Australia in 1982, and made A Shout Toward Noon (1986) for Private Music with Buell Neidlinger producing. His 1990 piece Ice Fields for guitar and orchestra, with Stephen Paulus, premiered with the Atlanta Symphony. Later records include Peculiaroso (1994), Standing in My Shoes (1997), One Guitar, No Vocals (1999), Try and Stop Me (2004) and three duo albums with Phish's Mike Gordon: Clone (2002), Sixty Six Steps (2005) and Noon (2020).

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee gave him an honorary doctorate of music performance on May 18, 2008. He told Acoustic Guitar in 2021 that he had not been off the road for more than two months in 50 years, and setlist.fm, with 1,057 setlists and 27 shows in 2024, shows dates booked into 2027. He names Mississippi John Hurt, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Pete Seeger's The Bitter and the Sweet among his influences, and John Fahey covered his "Death by Reputation".