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Standing Ovation
Kaki King's urban fingerstyle.

By Teja Gerken

Photo Credit: Jay Blakesburg

Ever since bursting onto the scene with her debut CD, Everybody Loves You, in 2003, Kaki King has been the talk of the fingerstyle guitar universe. With an urban attitude and a dynamic playing style, the 24-year-old King has achieved a level of success most solo guitarists only dream of: national tours in support of Keb’ Mo’, David Lindley, Mike Gordon, Robert Randolph, Tim Reynolds, and Charlie Hunter; appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and NPR’s All Things Considered; and most recently, a recording contract with Epic Records.

Everybody Loves You featured lots of flashy two-handed tapping and guitaristic compositions, which earned King comparisons to Michael Hedges and Preston Reed. King continues to use tapping techniques on parts of her Epic debut, Legs to Make Us Longer. But the album also showcases an artist in search of a more personal musical expression. Produced by experimental guitar icon David Torn, Legs to Make Us Longer opens with the ethereal “Frame,” which King recorded in real time with four guitars (placed on stands), each tuned to a different chord. The aptly titled “Doing the Wrong Thing” finds King on electric guitar, and on “Can the Gwot Save Us?” a lap steel is the tune’s primary voice.

King’s growing musical maturity is also evident onstage. In a performance at Berkeley, California’s Freight and Salvage last July, she mixed intensely percussive pieces, laid-back fingerpicking, and tasteful electronic looping effects. And her relaxed but hip stage banter shows why she may be a much-needed link between at least two generations of fingerstyle players. I talked with King over brunch on San Francisco’s Haight Street the morning after she tore down the house at the trendy Elbo Room.

How did you start playing the guitar?

KING My parents wanted me to learn an instrument when I was little, and my dad was a guitar fan, so he thought guitar would be appropriate. I took lessons for about a year when I was five. It was a lot of “Frere Jacques” and stuff like that—classical guitar lessons, but really, really basic. They ordered me a little four-string guitar from Japan. It wasn’t a ukulele, it had a larger body, but I’m not quite sure what you would call it. It was definitely a child’s learning guitar. Then I graduated to a six-string.

Did you always play acoustic guitar?

KING No, when I got a little older, I started playing mostly electric. Around the age of ten, my musical tastes became more mainstream, just for a minute, and I became more interested in electric guitar. My dad played, and he always had guitars around the house. There was always a guitar for me to play on. I had a pretty good ear and could pick things up pretty easily, so I started playing a lot of electric, learning some blues licks, pentatonic scales, barre chords, just basic pop/rock guitar stuff. And I started playing drums and bass in bands. I was really obsessed with music.

How did you get into fingerstyle guitar?

KING I grew up listening to all the Windham Hill guys: Will Ackerman, Alex de Grassi, a lot of [Michael] Hedges. I started listening to Nick Drake and Mark Kozelek from the Red House Painters and people who were singer-songwriters but who really pushed guitar to another level—that’s what really interested me. Then I went back and rediscovered [the Windham Hill players]. It was weird, I remember putting on [Alex de Grassi’s] Slow Circle, and I knew what the next song coming up would sound like. I hadn’t listened to it in years, I had just grown up with it.

Solo fingerstyle guitarists tend to be older and mostly male. Did you ever feel like you didn’t fit in?

KING I didn’t fit in, period. I was the only girl I knew playing guitar. Typically I was the youngest of whatever age group I was in musically, and I was usually ahead of everyone. I never really thought about it.

It sounds like a lot of it was exposure through your dad’s records and musical enthusiasm.

KING It certainly was. And it was teenage years of boredom. But I was sophisticated enough to push my boundaries musically and mentally, so I wasn’t too worried about whether I was fitting in socially.

So you haven’t had any formal training outside of the lessons you took when you were five?

KING I did have an understanding of the guitar. I grew up with it, it was in my brain at a really early age, and I think that, more than anything, has helped me.

You went to NYU and got a degree in humanities. Did you ever want a more formal musical education?

KING I was active in the music program at NYU; I took classes in the department. I just wasn’t actually part of the music school. I did sort of want to go to music school, but then I’d gotten pretty far by myself. By the age of 18, I knew I was on the right track with what I was doing.

When you were in college, did you want to make a career out of music?

KING I think that I did. I applied to schools in New York and Los Angeles because I did want to be in a big city, and I wanted to be around music and wanted to be able to really participate in it. I don’t enjoy making money as much as I do enjoy making music. If I really wanted to make money, I’d do something else. From an outsider’s view, you can look at people’s lives and careers and say, “Wow, that must be really tough.” On one hand it’s really great to be able to travel around, but on the other hand, it’s really difficult. My heroes, in the music I was playing, were absolutely obscure musicians. I had no idea that things would turn out the way they have, and I’m very lucky. But no, it wasn’t like, “Oh, I’m going to make a career in music.”

You’ve attended one of Alex de Grassi’s weeklong workshops and participated as a student at the Swannanoa Gathering. What were those like?

KING Swannanoa was really what made me realize the potential for what I was doing. That’s where I met Preston Reed and Al Petteway, who’s been a long-time friend, inspiration, supporter, and teacher. Again, it was the same thing: it was mostly older people in their 40s and then me, I was the young one.

Would you say these experiences helped shape your playing in a certain way?

KING Definitely. I had very little interest in Celtic guitar playing, for instance. After Swannanoa, I played predominantly in that style for a year. Meeting and seeing Preston [Reed] play was a turning point. It was great, because we were both playing Adamas guitars, so we were the two people with Ovations up there. Seeing him play was so amazing and so beautiful. Also, I've played drums for a very long time; I’m not great or anything, but it is part of what I do. Seeing that there’s no reason I can’t apply that to the guitar was one of the most important musical things that ever happened to me.

People compare you to Michael Hedges and Preston Reed, and I find Preston’s influence pretty strong in your playing. Have you consciously tried to emulate them?

KING Oh yeah. Hedges, obviously, took the genre to the highest place, professionally, that anyone has. He was a brilliant player, and he could do so many different things. But Preston was really [the turning point]. I give him credit on the new record—I say, “Thanks for letting me steal your licks.” I’m still working on and trying to find my own voice and trying to do new things with each record. I won’t be playing like him forever, or writing songs like him forever, but God bless him, because he really pushed the boundaries.

Are there any favorite guitar CDs you’re into right now or any that have stood the test of time for you?

KING Alex de Grassi’s Slow Circle is probably my all-time favorite. Andrew York . . . I can’t remember what the CD is called . . .

Perfect Sky, with “Sunburst” on it?

KING Yes, I love that CD! Recently, I’ve been getting a lot more into John Fahey than I ever was. Also Leo Kottke’s
Six and 12-String Guitar. There’s something about that record that really touches me.

Are there any strong nonguitar influences in your playing or writing?

KING Oh yes, absolutely! P.J. Harvey is one of my favorite things in the world. I’m a huge fan of Bjork. I listen to a lot of electronic music, and I like a lot of the ideas. The Smiths, Morrissey. Huge! I love Johnny Marr as a guitarist, I love Nick Drake as a guitarist, and the Red House Painters were a big, big thing for me.

When you started thinking about recording your new CD, Legs to Make Us Longer, what did you hope to do that was different from Everybody Loves You?

KING I thought about writing and composition a lot more, trying to make sense of songs, to focus on their structure. I feel like there were songs on the last record that were very open, and then these songs, they kind of sound more complete. Not that there is a right way and a wrong way, but the completion aspect was the one thing I really wanted to work on.

There are a few specific goals that I had, and I think I achieved them all, although I don’t know whether I achieved them in the ideal way. But I did want to have a song or two with percussion. The one thing that I’m really proud of is the lap-steel piece. There are two pieces where I play the lap steel. I bought a lap steel for the first time about a year ago, and it’s a very different beast. I felt really good that I was able to learn it and write something on it and record it. Now I’ve been playing it live. It’s still kind of a guitar, it sounds like a guitar, but there’s something else there.

How did you work on making the songs more complete?

KING If you write a song, you can have A B C, and it’s over, or you can have A B C B A; you can write in so many different ways. Every good pop song is about 30 seconds of music repeated four times.

Do you think about creating these different sections as you write, or do you just let things take their course?

KING I kind of let them take their course. Sometimes my writing is very linear. For the first record, it was very linear—point to point to point. I start in one place and one feeling and end up with another feeling. I tend to like that kind of music, but there's also something that’s so complete about having an A B pattern. These days, I’ve been writing very long introductions. What I’ll call an introduction will be basically half the song. Again, it’s a more linear structure, but within the introduction and the full song, there will be more of an A B sort of thing. There are a few tunes on the new record that do that.

Do the tunings you use influence your writing? Or is it the other way around?

KING The best pieces I’ve written have started with hearing an idea in my head, and then I go to the guitar and say, “What’s the easiest way to do this?” And that will dictate the tuning. But for a lot of it, I’ll just sit and play and let my fingers wander.

What tunings do you use most?

KING My longtime favorite has been C G D G A D and variations on that. Time just goes by and you pick up new favorites. D A D G A D used to be a favorite, and open C.

Do you ever play in standard tuning?

KING One song on the new record, “Lies,” was written in standard.

When you play in standard tuning, do you approach the tunes differently than if you were in an alternate tuning? Do you have more of an understanding in one or the other?

KING When I play in standard tuning, I try to get away from playing what I grew up playing—barre chords, open chords, and the typical scales. I try to utilize the open strings in a way that makes it sound like an open tuning.

Do you see right-hand tapping as more of a rhythmic or melodic thing?

KING It’s different from song to song. On certain songs, I play a bass line and a melody; there’s one on the old record and one on the new record like that. Sometimes it’s just filling up the sound. It’s always a means to an end; I never do tapping just to tap. That’s really silly.

Where and how did you record the new CD?

KING I recorded it at a studio called the Clubhouse, in Rhinebeck, New York, with David Torn, who produced it. It’s a little studio in a rural area, and I just isolated myself up there and got a lot of work done.

Did you record with mics only, or did you use a pickup sometimes?

KING We had a lot of different things going on. Torn is a total genius. His ear is just so broad. Pretty much every guitar had a DI of some sort. We took that direct [into the board], and it would also go into two different electric guitar amplifiers. Then we put up a variety of mics. In the end, we might pick two sounds from all the tracks or we’d have a mix of them all. With all the solo guitar pieces, there are about six lines: two mics, two amplifiers, a DI, and maybe another mic somewhere in the room. It opened up so many things sonically that I never thought were possible.

It’s a nice surprise to hear you sing, on “My Insect Life,” at the end of the record.

KING Singing is something I really enjoy, I’m just not very good at it. I’d like to get better—do it more, and practice it more. Another thing about singing, or actually lyric writing, is that so many people are so accomplished at it, which is why that last song is more syllables than real words. One thing I do know, all the really good players, all the ones that are really worth their salt, there’s not a single one of them that can’t sing. It’s almost a shame to have a built-in instrument in your body that can be used for so many simple purposes and not to have command over it.

You’ve done very well with audiences that aren’t typical fingerstyle guitar crowds, which very few solo players have been able to do. Why do you think that is?

KING I know a lot of people connect with me because I’m younger and because I’m female. A lot of people my age have never heard of solo guitar as a genre. They don’t even know it exists.

Some of the venues you play, like the Elbo Room in San Francisco, rarely feature solo guitar players.

KING People are attracted to what they can relate to. I feel lucky that I’m able to branch out. Unfortunately, there aren’t many people my age doing this. There are great young people playing solo guitar, I don’t want people to think that that’s not true, but it’s very difficult to get something like this off the ground. The other thing is that the pieces I write are a little more urbanized. Solo guitar music is often really pastoral and associated with nature—the whole new age movement, which is kind of phony at this point. I’ve been able to disassociate myself from that kind of thing, so different people are attracted to it.

What’s the difference between playing for something like a festival, jam-band type audience and more of a quiet listening
audience?

KING You really have to learn to appreciate both things. There’s no greater feeling than getting up in front of a crowd and standing there for 45 minutes and beating the shit out of your guitar and having people freak out. That’s a beautiful thing! Then, to be really under the microscope, and to be thinking about your music so deeply, while you’re playing it, and trying to push it to another level, and knowing that everyone else is right there with you.

Are there certain kinds of bands or musicians you particularly like playing double bills with?

KING Since I don’t really fit in anywhere in particular, I like to play with people like that. For instance, I opened for David Byrne at a gig in Milwaukee, and it felt really good because, while I don’t want to be as hubristic as to associate myself with guys as good as him, he’s sort of in a world of his own, so it’s good to do that. [Then] there are tough crowds . . . I opened for [electric bass virtuoso] Victor Wooten. I walked out, and people were like, “Oh man, what is this?” But when I started playing, they were like, “Wow, this is great!” I prefer a crowd that’s there to have a great time because of the music. I don’t think there’s any particular group of people that is going to relate better than others, as long as they’re fans of music. That’s the beauty of it, I don’t really have to specify.

Another thing is that when I meet the other players [I’m playing with], I’m just like, “What am I doing?” I feel almost ashamed. But there is so much great music in the world—there’s more great music now than there has ever been. I don’t know whether that’s silly or what, but it’s been democratized; everyone can do it now. People ask me what my goals are, and I think my biggest goal is just to be a musician; there are certain people in the world who are guitar players, and there are certain people who you just call musicians, and I would rather be a musician.

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Kaki King's Equipment Picks
This article also appears in Acoustic Guitar, Issue #144

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