Have you ever gone into the shop of a master jeweler or even a shoe repairman and just spend some time watching him work at his craft? That’s the kind of feel and ambience guitar virtuoso Leo Kottke gave the packed Lobero Theatre on Saturday night as he lets you observe his artistry between rambling stories that have some kind of connection to the project he’s currently working on.
Alone on stage with just a red chair, a water bottle and 6 and 12 string guitars, Kottke makes you feel he’s letting you into his world of earthy American lyrics and tunes. Opening with the sardonic “Pamela Brown”, he uses his folksy charm and avuncular vocal delivery to spin stories, or use a song such as “Julie’s House” as a lead in to spin a yarn about his hitch hiking during the twilight in Oklahoma. He can take an pop tunes such as “Rings” and with his Big Sky voice and calliope-inspired picking turn it into an American Gothic.
On instrumentals, which he jokingly referred to as “Orville Redenbacher music” he can make a single 6 or 12 string instrument sound like an entire orchestra, with full bodied picking, strumming and tapping on material ranging from Pete Seeger’s “Living in the Country” to self penned pieces like “Busted Bicycle” and “Ojo.” All between these deft mixes of blues, boogie and folk, Kottke gave ad hoc lectures on topics ranging from the perils of Major Thirds to Bubblegum Pop Tunes to tempermental microphones, making the free association mix with songs such as “Blue Dot” feel like just another brush stroke on the pastoral water color. He can make you feel like you’re sitting on the back porch in the Prairie during an intimate “Corrina, Corrina” or tasting a piece of American Ironic Pie with a wry “Go Away A Bit Closer.” On tunes such as these, his voice which is reminiscent of a scene in The Virginian, belying the fact that his technical skills are as sophisticated as Yasha Heifitz. He can make Will Rogers-styled comments such as “Germans have done to consonants what Hawaiians have done to vowels” that make you both laugh and scratch your head before he plunges into a string burner on “Gewerbegebite” and send you out of the show with an encore with the jaw dropping “Vaseline Machine Gun” to make you wonder if you enjoyed yourself because you were awed by his artistry, or by his hominess. Either way, you were part of taking in observing a artist in residence.
Upcoming shows at The LoberoTheatre include Preservation Hall Jazz Band with Allen Toussaint (Nov 25) and Robert Cray (Dec 8)