While teaching guitar and working at a Detroit music store at the age of 16, Klugh was “discovered ” by jazz great Yusef Lateef. In the next eighteen months after seeing him on TV, I bought forty of his albums and listened to them until I was able to copy from them. He was the only person I ever heard up to that point who played the instrument like I wanted to hear it played, playing chords and melody simultaneously with a finger-style technique. As Klugh stated in Down Beat, “I saw him on television, and he changed my whole concept of playing. It was at this point, in his middle teenage years, that Klugh discovered Chet Atkins. As writer Bill Milkowski explained in Down Beat, Klugh ’s appreciation for folk playing and Spanish guitar led him to experiment with a method of fingerpicking that he applied to the popular songs of that time, especially those by Beatles.
In addition to his interests in these performers, Klugh listened to a great deal of Spanish guitar music. The young player was particularly inspired by the popular trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, as well as by folk troubadour Bob Dylan. Klugh ’s enthusiasm for the guitar was encouraged by the increased attention given to folk music in the 1960s. By the time he was 13, Klugh disclosed to Down Beat, he had made up his mind that playing the guitar was what he wanted to do. After playing that instrument for seven years, Klugh switched to the guitar. ” In fact, Klugh began his musical career on the piano.īorn in Detroit on September 16, 1953, Klugh commenced formal training on the piano at the age of three. Klugh explained this approach in Down Beat as addressing the guitar “in a chordal way, more like a piano player instead of just one note at a time. ” Appropriately, it was Atkins who inspired Klugh in his early teens to approach the guitar in a manner that continues to distinguish him from other players. You can ’t say that about many guitarists. “He reaches your heart with that romantic special something, and he does it with taste and class. “Earl can wail with the best jazz players, but he ? prefers to touch people emotionally, ” asserted legendary guitarist Chet Atkins in Guitar Player.
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