Who IS this guy?

I'm primarily a blues musician who fell in love with the people, music, places and instruments of the earliest Delta blues singers/players as a young man. Married a beautiful Southern girl 51 years ago :) Between GrrrRecords.Com and YouTube.Com you can find some 37 albums and more that I've been involved with. It's been a long, amazing road! Also a chaplain and pastor, I live and work among poor and  homeless folks in inner-city Chicago -my home since early1973.

​Growing up in rural Wisconsin, USA (northern Midwest), youngest child of a broken home, poverty, several addictions and such all likely contributed to my understanding of the power and longing embedded in the music I love best. Moving to urban Milwaukee, I began singing and between help from a younger friend and teaching myself to play guitar, then several other instruments at 12 years of age on, music has been such a gift!

​First hearing Blind Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Huddie Ledbetter (aka Leadbelly), Rev. Gary Davis, Son House and many more moved me to a deeper study of not only their lives and living conditions but also the many engines of their music- African music traditions, culture, survival, hand-made instruments, slavery, racism, migration and spirituality.And... finally I began all sorts of varied prototype building of cigarbox and found-object guitars.
 

You may know of Bo Diddley whose stage name is a reversing of "diddley bow" which was/is slang for a 1 string primitive guitar. I create all kinds of these regularly and find them the least intimidating, easiest entry into guitar playing and songwriting concepts as I teach others both fingerstyle, with pick and slide guitar playing.
 

Playing in bands and working solo all my life means (at present) nearly 40 records, a truckload of songwriting and shows world-wide.

 

Beginning with soul, r&b and blues, morphing to various intense rock styles and hybrids, well, here I am.

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I've done countless blues history/guitar and cigarbox/found object git building lectures in many workshops teaching and helping people build these fun little instruments. The pleasure of seeing all-age faces light up when they complete a 1, 2 or 3 string primitive slide guitar, then begin finding the notes -this is music to my ears and no pun intended.

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Please check out my friends over at cigarboxnation.com and grrrrecords.com for more. Thanks for stopping by! -Glenn Kaiser

CONTACT: gkaisersoze@gmail.com for bookings, etc..