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"Hi, this is Leo Kottke calling, and I was told to give you a holler." Guitar master Leo Kottke
arrives for Maui, Big Isle,
Honolulu gigsBy Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.comThat slow, rich baritone voice comes rolling out in measured tones over the phone line, where the man is calling from Maui. With 12-string guitar in tow, Kottke arrived late Thursday to begin a three-island tour, first there, then on the Big Island, and finally here tomorrow to perform at the Hawaii Theatre.
He's a friendly, unpretentious man, not one to raise a ruckus, perfect considering he's from Minneapolis, Minn. -- although he's quick to remind with a small laugh that some of America's most notorious serial killers also came from that neck of the woods. But, hey, he's been a frequent guest of fellow Minnesotan Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion" radio show, and I'm sure no serial killer could trade quips with Keillor like Kottke could.
Kottke's rich imagination has translated well onto the instrument he's best known for. It's tough to pin a label on what Kottke plays on his acoustic 12-string guitar -- there's some folk, some jazz, maybe a little rock 'n' roll if you listen real hard -- but it's a vibrant American music that's hard to resist. He's a guitar master, no doubt about that.
Where: Hawaii Theatre Leo Kottke
When: 8 p.m. tomorrow
Admission: $25
Call: 528-0506
Kottke has entertained audiences worldwide for 30 some-odd years now, and he's visited and played here in the islands off and on since the height of his recording popularity in the early '70s.
Now he's in his early 50s, and it's his first time back since his last concert here a little more than eight years ago.
"I don't make it an active pursuit to tour, because I just don't like to fly," he said. "A lot of it is just filled with Mickey Mouse inconveniences, but it doesn't stop me from wanting to play for people. Love to play, hate to fly ..."
Born in Athens, Ga., Kottke and his family moved throughout the Midwest before settling in Minnesota, a state he made his permanent home after serving in the Navy. And swimming underwater is where we start our pleasant, rambling interview.
"I'm definitely more interested in things under water than above. I did a little scuba diving the last time I was here, but I haven't been able to do that yet, since you can't do a dive 24 hours after flying. You could end up getting the bends!
"But I do some scuba diving in the fresh water lakes back home. One time, I saw what I thought was a fish sleeping in a tree ..."
Wha??
"Actually it was draped over two branches of a tree in a submerged forest, and when I swam to it, I saw that it was still alive and breathing.
"There is a definitely some kind of cellular connection I feel when I'm in the water, I guess because we're all largely water organisms. The connection is undeniable, especially on night dives. I feel at peace, what with the combination of flight and the astounding fact of actually breathing while under water."
Do you ever get inspired musically while on a dive?
"Heck, I can be inspired by a Rice Krispie if I have to!"
COMPARED TO HIS early years recording for Capitol, "where my contract with them said I had to record and release one record every six months," he now averages an album every couple of years. "My last one was 1999's 'One Guitar, No Voice' (the man actually has a fine, deep singing voice) and my next one should be something I did with bass player Mike Gordon of Phish. I'm a fan of the band, especially Mike."
Kottke maintains a realistic view of life on the road and his musical career. "It is my living, even though I didn't intend to make it so."
He started playing the guitar when he was about 11, during a two-month bout of suffering every imaginable childhood disease around. That was compounded by the death of his sister.
"That kind of experience will always stay with you. Everyone gets sideswiped some time in their life, and it was the guitar that signaled to me; it actually came and got me and saved my skin. Playing it made me feel good. Now I know there seems to be a grief connection in a lot of musicians, where you have to find a voice for it or else it'll rattle around in you for the rest of your life."
Kottke has such a large back catalog of compositions, that over the last three albums of his, he's recorded newer versions of a couple of his more memorable tunes, particularly "Morning is the Long Way Home" and the seminal "Vaseline Machine Gun."
"Basically, I ran out of stuff on those recording sessions! But, the way I see it, there's always room for improvement."
The maturity of his playing is reflected in the reworkings. "It's changed quite a bit, even though it's not immediately apparent," he said. "I think my playing has both a broader and deeper expression to it. Early on, I'd basically try to blow my brains out in the way I played. Now I feel I have the whole world to choose from in any given note.
"Thankfully, my hands and general health are holding up. 'You gotta take care of 'em' is something Dizzy Gillespie once told me. I met him by chance on a street in Italy sometime in the late '70s, early '80s, and we spent a half-hour talking. The man is exactly what you would expect from a generous-minded man.
"I enjoy music, period. It doesn't matter to me who's playing what. For example, I can't get enough of (the late jazz pianist) Bill Evans."
Another musician who was pivotal to Kottke's career was the late John Fahey. The iconoclastic and idiosyncratic folk/blues guitarist basically gave Kottke his start on his Takoma label and the 1969 "6 & 12 String Guitar" album.
Fahey, however, was a hard man to deal with at times. In the latter years of his life he was living in a motel room in Salem, Ore., had divorced three times, contracted chronic fatigue syndrome (on top of being a diabetic) and had always struggled with alcoholism.
"He just learned to live that way. He was always a contentious guy," remembers Kottke. "Artsy-fartsy types like him always have thorny relationships with the kind of airs they keep around them. They have to give up sooner or later, that's what Dizzy wrote in his autobiography. It didn't work for John or Dizzy.
"It comes to a point where, why play at all if you're at odds with everything around you, always complaining? And when that becomes part of your public persona, just like it did with John, that just puts your ass in a big sling!
"He didn't like traveling or playing. He was a very cranky guy and one of the best friends I ever had. He was a great man who truly changed the way the guitar was played. The guitar wouldn't be where it is today without John.
"What I learned from him was some basic geography, discovering the real territory for solo, flattop guitar. It's been there all along. I just didn't know it before I met him."
When asked if there was any particular tune or album that encapsulated Fahey's music, Kottke said, "Well, there's a title for a guitar tune he wrote that epitomizes him. 'The Portland Cement Factory at Monolith, California.' It's a great title that came back to me while I was at his funeral. Before he died, John had fallen in love with a koto player when he visited Japan, and while she was twanging away during the service, it dawned on me how fitting that title was. It's almost in a form of a haiku."
KOTTKE CONTINUES to mine his life experience as a Midwesterner. "I was talking to my (filmmaker) friend Terence Malick, who I did music for for his 'Days of Heaven' film, and he was making 'The Thin Red Line' at the time, and we're both solitary characters, and we were both wondering what was it about the Midwest that we consistently drew inspiration from.
"The music that I've come up with is definitely tied to it. What I write couldn't have happened anywhere else. The food, the people and the music of that area comes out of my guitar. It's hard to pin down.
"A lot of people wonder why anyone would want to live there in the winter. But the whole region is still interesting to me -- it's politically liberal; three states actually cast their electoral votes for Bob LaFollette (a Wisconsin native and progressive politician who ran as an independent candidate for the U.S. presidency back in 1924). It's where my dad came from, in Minnesota. Prince is still there. The Trashmen (a garage band whose sole claim to fame was the wild 1965 rock 'n' roll hit 'Surfin' Bird' and its immortal line 'Papa oom mau mau!' later covered by the Ramones) came from there."
Being from the Midwest was a minus just once.
"I've only played in one band, the Blackwells, at the Domino Bar, way back when," Kottke said. "I was fired after one night, said I didn't look right. It must've been the plaid sportscoat, giving me that Barney Fife look!"
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