“A guitar sounds good even if you drop it on the floor. A beginner can find music in the guitar that has escaped the virtuoso. It’s a magical instrument, constrained by a short range and a peculiar tuning, that produces music beyond the limits of its own nature.”

Leo Kottke

From: Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar by Darcy Kuronen.

This book was published in 2000 by MFA Publications and produced in conjunction with the now-legendary exhibition of the same name that ran from November 5, 2000 to February 25, 2001 at The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA. “Dangerous Curves…” presented an array of over 130 guitars spanning four centuries of the instrument’s very colorful history. It was the first major art exhibit dedicated to the visual design and evolution of the guitar.

Leo Kottke (born September 11, 1945 in Athens, Georgia) is an acoustic guitarist, composer, singer, performer and recording artist.

If you’ve ever had the very good fortune to see Leo Kottke in concert, then you know that he is not only a truly dazzling fingerstyle acoustic guitarist but an entertaining and very funny storyteller as well. Leo’s unpredictable sense of humor also emerges when he’s being interviewed – thus the quote above – and, every now and then, in one of his songs.

“Jack Gets Up” is a song that Leo Kottke wrote and first released on his 1989 album, My Father’s Face. The recording below was made at The Fox Theater in Boulder, Colorado on Easter Sunday, April 16, 1995 and released later that year by On The Spot Records on the album, Live. (Highly recommended)