Kaki King
(born August 24, 1979 as Katherine Elizabeth King
) is an American guitar player and singer-songwriter from Atlanta, Georgia.
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KAKI KING TICKETS
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Early life
King was born August 24, 1979 in Atlanta, Georgia. While King was still a small child, her father encouraged her interest in music. She was introduced to the guitar first, but when she learned to perform on the
drums, they became her first serious instrument. King played in bands in
high school with classmate Morgan Jahnig, who would later become the
acoustic bassist of
Old Crow Medicine Show. Upon graduating from
The Westminster Schools in Atlanta in 1998, the two friends made their way to
New York University. During her time there, King adopted the guitar again after years of neglect, and the 5'1" musician played a few occasional gigs and
busked in the New York subways.
[1] [2]
Career
King's two earlier recordings (
Everybody Loves You
on
Velour Records in 2003 and
Legs to Make Us Longer
with
Sony Records) in 2004 featured more
acoustic compositions. These albums focus on her unique guitar skills, such as hammering, tapping, and "fanning," as well as using intricate tunings of her guitar. However, her albums and tours since then have had more use of electric guitars, drums, keyboards and
music loops. In 2005, she parted ways with major label Sony and returned to her original label, Velour.
For her third album
...Until We Felt Red
, King made a conscious decision to depart from her previous musical direction,
[3] out of a desire to escape being pigeonholed as a solo instrumental artist. The album features King's vocals on more tracks than previous albums. With the prominence of
electric guitar on the new record and the addition of a full band, the popular music website
AV Club called the sound a “post-rock makeover”. Featuring production work by
Tortoise's
John McEntire, the album was released on
August 8,
2006 on
Velour Records.
In a
MySpace bulletin on
July 5,
2006, King announced that she would play with a full band for the first time on her "...Until We Felt Red" tour.
King's talents began to catch on within the music industry, and more artists became interested in using King as a guitarist on their tracks. In 2007, she was featured as a guest guitarist on
The Con
, an album by Canadian indie-pop/rock band
Tegan and Sara, released on
July 24,
2007. She appears on the tracks “Knife Going In”, playing
lap steel, and on “Floorplan”, playing guitars. Both songs were written by Sara Quin.
She also featured on
Northern State's 2007 album,
Can I Keep This Pen?
on the track "Fall Apart".
King has also guested as a guitarist on the track "Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners" from the
Foo Fighters' studio album, entitled
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
, released on
September 25,
2007. On
November 18,
2007 she joined
Dave Grohl on stage to perform the track at the O2 arena in London. With fellow musicians like
Serj Tankian and
Jimmy Page in attendance, Grohl is quoted as saying: “There are some guitar players that are good and there are some guitar players that are really fucking good. And then there's Kaki King.”
[4]
On
January 14,
2008, she appeared at a
Breakfast with the Foo Fighters
hosted by
Kevin and Bean from
KROQ-FM, a commercial radio station located in
Los Angeles, California. There she performed "Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners". Grohl jokingly stated that he is "molding her to take his place." She then went on tour with the Foo Fighters on the Australian leg of the Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace tour.
King also appears in the 2007 film
August Rush
, performing as the protagonist's hands and playing his guitar parts. In addition, she contributed to the music for the 2007 film,
Into the Wild
, produced and directed by
Sean Penn, playing “Frame” and “Doing the Wrong Thing”. Both songs are featured on her second album,
Legs to Make Us Longer
.
King finished her new record, and in late 2007 wrote about it in her
MySpace blog: “I finished the new album. Don't get your panties in a tangle, it won't be released until next year, but it's done. And it's amazing.” In a later blog and in a
Billboard Magazine interview
[5] she told readers that the new album
Dreaming of Revenge
, produced by
Malcolm Burn, would be released on March 4, 2008.
[6] This date was changed to March 11, 2008.
On March 4, 2008,
iTunes released a full version of
Dreaming of Revenge
featuring the bonus track "I Need A Girl Who Knows A Map".
King is also a featured artist for Adamas and Ovation guitars. Adamas guitars' composite tops are well suited for her tap-style playing, as King herself noted on the DVD "Unique Voices: 40 Years of Ovation Guitars". The soundholes on her Adamas guitar are adorned with a cloudlike pattern inlay that King designed herself.
In an interview in the April 1, 2008 issue of
Blast Magazine
, King says she hopes she can be known more for her music and not just as a "good female guitarist." “Ultimately, I’d rather be known as like, ‘Oh yeah, that sounds like Kaki King,’ rather than ‘Oh, she’s pretty good for a girl.’”
[7] However, King has not shied away from her gender, appearing in several
Gardasil commercials to promote the first
vaccine for
cervical cancer.
King made an appearance on the forthcoming tribute to
The Cure on
Manimal Vinyl Records in fall 2008 covering "Close To Me".
Whilst touring Australia with the Foo Fighters in 2008, Kaki featured on the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio station
Triple J's "Like A Version" where she performed a cover of the second half of
Justin Timberlake's song "
LoveStoned/I Think She Knows". This performance was also filmed and aired on the ABC show
jtv on May 5, 2008 in Australia. A studio version of this cover was featured on
Engine Room Recordings' compilation album
Guilt by Association Vol. 2, which was released in November 2008
[8].
King was a featured performer in
The Berkeley Sessions, a 30 minute solo concert filmed for television in Canada in April 2008 and premiered on
Bravo! October 8, 2008.
[9]
King has also been a guest
contestant on the Australian musical trivia
quiz show Spicks and Specks, appearing on October 22, 2008 on
ABC1, as well as on June 3, 2009.
Most recently, you can find King's music being featured in the soundtrack for the movie
Twilight. She is also credited for scoring the yet-to-be-released film "How I Got Lost".
Awards and nominations
thumb
In February 2006, King was named as a “Guitar God” by
Rolling Stone Magazine, becoming the first ever female to make this list in the history of the publication.
[10]
On December 13, 2007, King was nominated for a
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for the music she played in the film
Into the Wild
. She was nominated for the award along with
Eddie Vedder and
Michael Brook, who also contributed music to the film.
[11]
Style and techniques
King's style combines
fret-tapping with
slap bass techniques, using the guitar for percussive beats, as well as sound layering and
looping, which creates a complex sound. Her playing style evokes
Michael Hedges and
Preston Reed,
[12] the latter of whom she explicitly cites as an influence.
[13] Although she shares both similar playing techniques and a last name with guitarist
Justin King, the two are not related.
Discography
- Everybody Loves You
(2003)
- Legs to Make Us Longer
(2004)
- ...Until We Felt Red
(2006)
- Day Sleeper (Australian tour EP)
(2007)
- Dreaming of Revenge
(2008)
- Black Pear Tree
(2008) (With The Mountain Goats)
- Mexican Teenagers EP
(2009)
See also
- Michael Hedges
- Don Ross
- Erik Mongrain
- Stanley Jordan
- Andy Mckee
- Tapping
References
- New York Public Radio interview, April 18, 2007 (access to video)
- Kaki King's Busker Therapy
- ''Kaki King, the princess of acoustic fingerstyle guitar, heads off in a new direction'', by Derk Richardson, September 21, 2006
- ''Foo Fighters team up with Kaki King in London'', NME magazine, November 18, 2007
- ''Kaki King Exacts 'Revenge' On New Album'', by Jonathan Cohen, November 20, 2007
- ''Kaki King Album, Dreaming Of Revenge, Set for March'', Modern Guitars Magazine, November 28, 2007
- Kaki King’s dream world, ''Blast Online Magazine''
- My Brightest Diamond, Frightened Rabbit Do Covers
- "The Berkeley Sessions - xofficial website"
- http://stereogum.com/archives/rolling-stones-new-school-of-guitar-gods_004595.html
- Title Unavailable
- Kaki King biography by Marisa Brown, Allmusic
- Interview with Kaki King on NPR (access to audio and video)