Owls, by Leo Kottke

A "field" recording in the mountains of Montana. I was speaking to George Winston about Leo Kottke a few years ago and he mentioned one of his favorite pieces of Leo's was "Owls," at the time I was not that familiar with the tune but followed up with it later on at the request of several of my compadres who wanted to learn the piece as close as possible to the way it was recorded by Kottke. It is in a unique tuning for Kottke, standard but with the two lowest strings tuned to C and G.

This was my first time trying to record in an uncontrolled environment. Between the black bears that roamed through the yard on one day, some rodent critter constantly ruining takes with his chirping, and the wind, we had to go with the best we could get out of what was shot. The guitar is a stellar sounding, very fancy pearl trimmed Božo, built by Božo Podunavac in the 90s as a "Leo Kottke custom."