er moving to Canada from Texas in the early 70's, Curt honed his fingerstyle acoustic blues chops busking at the corner of Yonge and Wellesley in downtown Toronto. He later moved to western Canada, graduating to small folk clubs and lounges - first solo - then as part of an acoustic trio called "Appleshine" with two displaced New York folkies. Curt continued to specialize in acoustic blues fingerstyle guitar through the early 80's, including a cross - Canada concert tour with Canadian classical guitarist Norbert Craft. During the same period, Curt was also active in guitar design with Yamaha Music and was instrumental in the design of custom guitars for Canadian guitar masters Bruce Cockburn, Liona Boyd and Rik Emmett. Curt added electric guitar to his repertoire in the early 80's when he met Quebec based blues master Brian Monty and started playing electric rhythm and slide guitar in Brian's band. The highlight of their work together came when Brian and Curt - supported by several Long John Baldry band members - played 2 nights with blues legend Albert King at the "The Brunswick" in Toronto.
The most fortunate "chance meeting" in Curt's musical career occurred n the mid 80's when he was fulfilling a friend's request to add a guitar solo to a demo he was recording for GRT Records. The producer on that session was former Ronnie Hawkins keyboardist and producer / engineer / musician extraordinaire Glen Johansen. Curt ended up doing most of the guitar work on that project, as well as countless others at Glen's Toronto studio, including Glen's first solo album, Walkin' A Fine Line alongside Canadian guitar icon Domenic Troiano. Their musical collaborations have continued over the years - the most recent being Glen's production of Curt's debut solo CD, Masquerade - an all-instrumental collection of classics from the 50's, 60's and 70's by writers such as Carole King, Leon Russell, Kenny Burrell, Tony Joe White, and Van Morrison.
These days Curt usually performs in Oakville and Toronto, playing that same "DNA embedded" Blues, Motown and R&B he grew up on, along with Jazz Standards and "Nu-Jazz" arrangements of classics from the past 4 decades.
Photos from top to bottom:
.....Curt in the studio with Glen Johansen
.....Curt presnting a specially designed guitar to Bruce Cockburn
.....Poster for Curt and Norbert Kraft's cross - Canada tour
