Quotes by Leo Kottke

About Leo Kottke:

Leo Kottke is an acoustic guitarist. He is known for a fingerpicking style that draws on blues, jazz, and folk music, and for syncopated, polyphonic melodies. He overcame a series of personal obstacles, including partial loss of hearing and a nearly career-ending bout with tendon damage in his right hand to emerge as a widely recognized master of his instrument. He currently resides in the Minneapolis area with his family.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Yeah I do and I don't mind, in fact that is one of the real encouraging things about this whole career of mine is that there are tunes I wrote almost thirty years ago that I will still play in front of an audience and I still like the old tunes.

Leo Kottke

That was when I found out that you could talk to them and it was a whole other way to blow your stack, and it's so much fun to perform that you want to do it again and the more you get out of it the better.

Leo Kottke

I have always thought of myself as a performer first and way down the line as a recording artist.

Leo Kottke

The principle element in a performance is risk, and if you're losing interest then by scaring yourself to death the audience will feel it and boy it'll wake them up.

Leo Kottke

When the audience is awful you can still have a great night and people will walk out thinking they had a great time even though there was loads of loudmouths and the sound was terrible.

Leo Kottke

The bulk of my set is instrumental and you have to give yourself and the audience some relief because a performance is not about great guitar playing it's really about entertainment.

Leo Kottke

Yes and for two reasons: one, I couldn't find anything to imitate at the time, and secondly because what I heard on the radio didn't bear any resemblance to what I wanted to hear on the guitar.

Leo Kottke

It depends on the time of the year and who I've been talking to, I try to put people in the studio I like.

Leo Kottke

I don't spend a lot of time thinking of what they'll do musically, I try to imagine being locked into a windowless room with this person for twelve hours at a time. If you can look at that and think it might be fun then maybe you've got the right mus...

Leo Kottke

I was required by Capital to release one every six months and the fastest I could do with all my touring was every nine months, and it would spook me every time because I never had what I needed and I really didn't want to do covers.

Leo Kottke

The first music I was exposed to was Stravinsky and I loved it but I don't remember it.

Leo Kottke

We spent a lot of time on that record with the sound and recorded it on the Paramount sound stage which is this huge room where the sound is reflected but the reflection is so late and comes from so far away that it doesn't blur the music but gives y...

Leo Kottke

Author Bio

  • NameLeo Kottke
  • DescriptionAmerican guitarist and singer
  • BornSeptember 11, 1945
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionSinger