Happy Birthday Khaki King!
Although she played both the guitar and the drums, there was a point in her life when Katherine Elizabeth King – known to millions by her stage name Kaki King – believed her musical break would come from behind the kit. Thankfully when she joined university, Kaki picked up the guitar again and revisited the fingerstyle technique that had mesmerized her as a child, and in about eight years, she would be the youngest and the only female name on the list of Rolling Stones list of “The New Guitar Gods” (published in 2006).
Kaki King celebrates her 36th birthday today.
Kaki King may not be one of the most popular guitarists out there, but what makes her special is that she is unforgettable. Anyone who has seen her perform, be it live or on a video on Youtube, would be taken aback at first by her style and her sound, and then, as the music unfolds, be arrested by it. She doesn't care for genres, or for standard tunings, and it makes for beautiful listening. Typically incorporating fingerstyle fanning, flamenco and fret tapping percussive elements, open and viola tunings and use of traditional 7-string Russian guitars, she has been described by Rolling Stones as 'a genre in herself'. Her first album, “Everybody Loves You”, which is also her fully acoustic album, got her noticed for her skills in reference to her age. She moved on to make nine more studio albums, made music for films (including “August Rush” and Sean Penn's “Into The Wild” with Michael Brook and Eddie Vedder, for which they received a Grammy nod) and TV, and played with the Foo Fighters. In 2005 she moved away from performing solo and began touring with a band, and in 2011 returned to her solo roots. Her musical style swerved from the eclectics in her “Legs to Make Us Stronger” track “Playing With Pink Noise” to melodic pop-like tunes in “Dreaming of Revenge” to the dark, serious themes like spies living double lives in the album “Junior” (which spawned from Kaki's interest in Cold War novels).
With a soul for the arts, Kaki King conceived The Guitar Art Show in 2009, where visual artists were commissioned to create artworks on blank guitars, themed on her songs. For her latest album “The Neck is a Bridge to the Body”, she collaborated last year with visual experience company Glowing Pictures to construct a unique multimedia production, where the guitar is turned into a projection screen, and is Kaki's tribute to the instrument she terms a 'shape-shifter'. An album corresponding to the theatrical piece was released this year.
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