Kaki King, Queen of the Acoustic Guitar

By Liane Hansen

Published November 21, 2004 at 5:31 PM EST

Acoustic guitarist Kaki King honed her unusual fingerstyle technique playing in New York City subway stations. She does amazing things with the simple six-string: she slaps the wood, rubs the strings and hammers her fingers over the frets. In short, she treats her guitar like a percussion instrument, creating a sound that one reviewer describes as "somewhere between funk and flamenco."

She dropped by recently to visit with NPR's Liane Hansen, show off her distinctive style and talk about her new CD, Legs to Make Us Longer -- produced by another innovative guitarist, David Torn. And as a bonus, she played an untitled track that hasn't been released yet.

Liane Hansen

Liane Hansen has been the host of NPR's award-winning Weekend Edition Sunday for 20 years. She brings to her position an extensive background in broadcast journalism, including work as a radio producer, reporter, and on-air host at both the local and national level. The program has covered such breaking news stories as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the deaths of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Columbia shuttle tragedy. In 2004, Liane was granted an exclusive interview with former weapons inspector David Kay prior to his report on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The show also won the James Beard award for best radio program on food for a report on SPAM.

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