American Fingerstyle Guitar

I am a self-taught fingerstyle guitarist who composes and performs original instrumental guitar music. Talk about a niche.

The most common question I get is “What do you call your music?”. Is fojazzical a genre? I just use whatever type of music will tell the story I’m trying to tell, so I use themes found in Celtic, American Folk, Blues, Jazz, Classical, even Rock and Roll.

Over the past 16 years I’ve released 4 solo albums, and 2 duo albums with violinist Joe Ebel. All of my solo albums have been in the Top 20 on instrumental charts, with Homecoming getting to number #5.

I’ve played all over North America in folk and singer/songwriter rooms like Cafe Lena, Club Passim, The Bluebird Cafe, Eddie’s Attic, The Grey Eagle, Uncle Calvin’s, Acoustic Sounds Cafe, Moonlight Music, Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, Kent State Folk Festival, and I’ve twice been a featured performer at Regional Folk Alliances in the Northeast and Southwest.

Go figure, even though I don’t sing, the singer/songwriter audience really digs what I do. As a result I’ve gotten to share the stage with some of my favorite songwriters; Arlo Guthrie, John Mayer, Chuck Pyle, Christine Kane, Pierce Pettis, Louise Taylor, Billy Jonas, Cliff Eberhardt, Dee Carstensen, and Garnet Rogers. I’ve also gotten to do my share of guitar shows with the likes of Ed Gerhard, Bill Mize, Harvey Reid, and Martin Simpson.

Through my work with guitar builder Alan Carruth, I’ve become a featured performer at guitar festivals such as the esteemed Healdsburg Guitar Festival, the Montreal Guitar Festival, and the Newport Guitar Festival. In addition to endorsing and performing with Alan Carruth Guitars and Jeff Bamburg Guitars I have also enjoyed performing mini-concerts for master luthiers Linda Manzer, Rich Mermer, Kathy Wingert, David Berkowitz, Charles Fox, Sheldon Schwartz, Josh House, and Jeffrey Yong at the Newport, Montreal and Healdsburg guitar festivals. In 2012 at the Montreal Guitar Festival I’ll be adding two great luthiers, Fred Tellier and Kevin Pederson to this list.

I feel incredibly lucky to be alive during this modern day renaissance in guitar building. We are in what many are calling the Golden Age of luthiery, and it’s been an honor to be able to help these incredibly talented men and women display their tremendous instruments.

The music business hasn’t always been kind to me, and in 2001 I took a five year hiatus from touring. I was burned out, exhausted, and empty of artistic ideas. I spent the next five years teaching, writing, and in the process regained my love for the acoustic guitar.

In 2006, as I was contemplating my return to the stage, I decided to make changes in my approach. Earlier in my career I had been advised to go for the ‘pop’ guitar market, and try to become the Earl Klugh of steel string guitar, and the record label I was on was trying to promote me as the George Winston of guitar. I’ve never felt comfortable in either role. I’m a folkie at heart. My hero has always been Steve Goodman who had such an intimate approach to performing. I always felt like I was in someone’s living room when I saw him perform, and I wanted to bring that casual intimacy to my shows. I also wanted to play for guitarists-another thing my label and management didn’t want me to do. So the guitar, and not me, became the focus of my shows. I started designing and playing ‘odd’ guitars like the high-string guitar, which sounds like a music box, and the baritone guitar which sounds like a plucked cello. I talked with my audiences about the guitars and tunings I use, and they LOVED it. They really like hearing about the behind the scenes information explaning how I get my guitars to sound the way they do. This is stuff they’re really interested in knowing about, and it’s helped both their appreciation for and understanding of the wide ranging possibilities solo guitar provides. It’s been extraordinarily gratifying.

I developed a concert event called Artistry of the Guitar with anchor artist,  guitarist Steve Davison.  There are anywhere from 2 to 4 guitarists-in-the-round at these concerts. We all gather on stage in a semi-circle swapping songs, and quite often jamming along with each other.  All of the guitarsts are wonderful soloists and the styles and genres they represent are incredibly wide ranging; everything from Bach to rock, Celtic to New Age, and showcase the myriad styles of music and techniques available to the guitarist.

Since creating Artistry of the Guitar I’ve been able to share the stage with an amazing array of today’s finest guitarists having played shows with Larry Coryell, Michael Manring (a bass is a guitar), Tim Farrell, Vicky Genfan, Sean McGowan, Larry Pattis, Brooks Williams, Dakota Dave Hull, Stephen Bennett, Kinloch Nelson, Peter Janson, Doug Young, and Teja Gerken. For all practical purposes it’s a traveling guitar festival. 

I also wanted to give back to the guitarists who have been supporting me through the years. So I started offering workshops to guitarists so that they can get the most out of their own guitar artistry. I’ve offered workshops covering topics from “Good Practice Techniques” to “The Secrets of Alternate Tunings Revealed” to “Everything the beginning guitarist needs to know”. I’ve also put 12 of my songs in TABlature so that others can learn my music and grow as guitarists. And I’ve recently collaborated with master transcriber Mark Grover to transcribe even more of my material.

In October of 2010, Alan Carruth delivered me the harp guitar you see pictured above. It was a life changing experience for me, and I now tour all over North America with Bella, as I call her. I am one of less than a dozen touring performers in North America to perform with this amazing instrument that traces its roots to the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800’s when Chris Knutsen built his first harp guitar. Below is the first song I wrote for the harp guitar-”Longing for the Day”. Enjoy.

Can’t wait to see you at a show on down the road.

Cheers, kb