Guitar God Leo Kottke Still Dazzles
Plymouth, NH.  The Flying Monkey Performance Center presents an evening with Leo Kottke on Saturday, April 28th.  Kottke is known for his innovative and original finger-picking acoustic guitar style. Tickets for this concert start at $35.
For four decades, Leo Kottke has relentlessly pursued a unique musical vision that has placed him among the foremost acoustic guitar stylists of our time — or any other time, for that matter. A six and 12-string guitar virtuoso, Kottke has dazzled audiences with his amazing fingerstyle approach — amassing a worldwide following and winning seven Grammy Awards in the process.
The Los Angeles Times notes “Kottke has an uncanny ability to make folk music sound like capital-A art.” The self-taught guitarist first surfaced with his now-legendary 1969 recording, Six and Twelve-String Guitar. He has since blazed a singular stylistic path — creating music which draws on blues, jazz, and folk influences. Classical precision, popular appeal, jazz fluency, 20th-century harmony, syncopated rhythms, and lyrics that feature quasi-literary characterizations all vie for supremacy in his music and challenge our preconceived notions of how acoustic guitar music should sound.
“My music is maybe hard to categorize,” Kottke allows. “It doesn’t fit conveniently into the bins at record stores. That works for me, though … I don’t rise and fall with trends. Most listeners seem to have room for this stuff.  It’s been great that way.”
Longtime Kottke devotees have learned to expect the unexpected. Kottke’s ability to embrace folk idioms and pop melodies as readily as he assimilates jazz and classical influences makes him unique among guitar virtuosi. But for all its technical brilliance, wicked syncopation and harmonic sophistication, Kottke’s music is eminently accessible.  At heart he’s a populist.
Audacious, intelligent and funny (oh, the funny stories!), Leo Kottke’s musical performance defies traditional categories and is, simply put, a delight to hear.
Tickets for the Leo Kottke concert are $35, and $45 for premium seats.   For tickets and more information on concerts and the Flying Monkey Performance Center, visit www.flyingmonkeynh.com or call 603-536-2551.