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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsLeo Kottke is 70 this year. 41 years later, this song still blows me away
If I hadn't seen him play this live, I would never EVER have believed this is only ONE guy playing guitar on this piece:
MH1
(17,600 posts)Zorro
(15,740 posts)It was a brisk night in the autumn of 1970, and after sharing a couple of bowls with friends at an off-campus apartment, our host told us we just had to listen to this then unknown guitarist playing his 12 string Bozo -- and he then put Kottke's "6 and 12 String Guitar" on the turntable.
It's a totally exquisite album, but it was "Vaseline Machine Gun" that really blew us away -- it was amazing that one person could play like that. What an astounding talent.
DFW
(54,396 posts)It was done on old Gibsons etc. I forget exactly which. Fahey must have lent some to him to record the album.
By the time I first saw him, was WAS playing Boo guitars and I was so obsessed, the first time I was able (5 years later, when work took me out there), I sought out Boo, who was then in Southern California, and started having him make guitars for me. They were expensive (for the time--late 70s), but I knew they'd be instruments I'd be playing for the rest of my life.
I asked Boo how he was able to make such incredible guitars, and he said it took about 9 months and about $2000 worth of material to make a decent 12 string guitar. He was charging about $2800 for them. I told him I didn't see how he could ever make any money taking 9 months and $2000 for raw materials any only charging $100 a month for his work. A simple soul, all he saw was $800 profit per guitar. I explained to him that he was never going to get anywhere using that kind of math, and indeed, he never made any money even though he was one of the greatest luthiers of the 20th century.
Here are the last two he made for me, a matching pair:
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hopemountain
(3,919 posts)amazing detail.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)He has "a voice like a goose farting".
IMO true perfection must include a blemish, and I've loved the entire music package since I first heard him 38 years ago.
Thanks for the reminder.
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)He wrote the liner notes on the back, which are hilarious. I still have my vinyl copy.
He said his voice sounded "like geese farts on a muggy day".
I saw him live twice in the 1970s and he's still amazing. He's the octopus of the guitar.
"I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown" is a pretty funny song. "She dug me cuz I drove a pickup truck."
Paladin
(28,262 posts)I'm like you---I saw him in concert with my own eyes and ears, and I still couldn't believe what he was getting out of that guitar. "Morning Is The Long Way Home" is a classic.
clarice
(5,504 posts)NNadir
(33,523 posts)the beautiful "A Child Should Be a Fish."
It's a weird name - Kotke, like Fahey had a penchant for the weird - but it's unbelievably beautiful, unbelievable.
I heard he has arthritis, but plays on.
I confess I haven't listened to him much in recent years, but now I'll go upstairs and dig out "Ice Water"
It may very well make my day. Thanks!
DFW
(54,396 posts)I heard he did a solo album that bombed. Probably too good and introspective for commercial viability.
Kottke (A Czech name according to a cousin of his I once met) developed tendonitis long ago which forced him to abandon using finger picks ad change his manner of playing, but he switched to lighter guitars (Taylor) and kept on picking.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)On it he did a version of Eight Miles High, I remember. Anyway, the record is too scratched up to play now.
DFW
(54,396 posts)Not one of his more memorable albums, but with a few memorable pieces on it. Eight Miles High, Cripple Creek, Bourrée and, especially, Room 8, and his incredible "Stealing," with him overdubbing a duet with himself, one six-string at normal tuning with no capo, and the same guitar doing the second track with the capo on the third fret. It took me a long time to figure that one out!
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)I haven't listened to it for years.