Concert Review: Leo Kottke

Taking his seat on the small, floor-level stage of the Carnegie Lecture Hall on Saturday evening, Leo Kottke seemed momentarily unsure of his purpose in being there. Setting a 12-string guitar on the floor beside him and taking his 6-string in hand, he proceeded not to play a song, but instead to tell a story. After a moment of talking and looking down at the floor, he questioned why he was staring at the 12-string: “It was there a minute ago. It’s still there now.” So began an evening that would hold many more stories--some with purpose, some without, but all of them charming.

It took Kottke a few songs to warm up and to get the venue’s modest soundsystem to where he wanted it, which was presumably lower and louder. Just when the audience thought it was there, Kottke unfolded a story about playing a festival in the 70s at which the crowd insisted on climbing the speaker stacks despite a soundman’s warnings. The end of the story had a stack falling on top of a girl, wicked-witch-of-the-west-style, and the point of the story was that Kottke wanted it louder. Apparently satisfied, he proceeded to hit his stride, and from then on the night was a lesson in humility for any guitar player in the room.

Highlights included Kottke’s take on the traditional “Corrine, Corrina,” which he transformed from a simple folk tune into a postmodern jazz-blues, possibly a result of his first having heard it played by Mississippi John Hurt rather than Dylan, who introduced most of us to that sweet love song. Kottke similarly transformed “Little Martha,” riffing on Duane Allman’s timeless instrumental to make it something all his own. It was true to much of Kottke’s work, which can’t be fit neatly into one genre or another; it’s an inimitable sound, uniquely Leo Kottke.

For many in the crowd, that notion was driven home when Kottke launched into an unreleased tune which he called “Ants” and described as “a bear on the 12-string.” He warned in advance that one section was “particularly beary,” but it was impossible to tell as he blazed through it without a slip. And when he finished, it was clear to all in the audience that they had witnessed a master of both his instrument and his craft.