“…an amazing display of all-around fingerstyle mastery. Scary stuff.” —GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE
After a day of demanding music classes at Berklee College of Music, Peter Huttlinger would grab a friend, rush to the Harvard Square subway station and spend the afternoon there playing music for tips. The two always came back with their pockets filled. For Huttlinger, this routine symbolized what has become his abiding outlook toward music: Perfect your art, but play to the crowd.
Since his days of subway busking, Huttlinger has developed into a world-renowned guitarist. Even as a must-have sideman, he occupied some pretty choice real estate, including the Hollywood Bowl and London’s Royal Albert Hall with John Denver, Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas with George Burns and stadiums around the world with numerous other pop and country superstars including, LeAnn Rimes, Neil Young, and James Taylor.
He has been a featured artist with the San Diego and Houston symphonies and is a favorite guest artist of the Nashville Chamber Orchestra. In 1999 he won the Tennessee State Guitar Championship and in 2000 Huttlinger won the title of National Fingerstyle Champion at the prestigious Walnut Valley Festival.
These days, the dazzling guitarist is stepping solo into the spotlight. His latest triumph is his affiliation with Favored Nations Acoustic, a new imprint of Favored Nations, the label founded by guitar legend Steve Vai. The first fruit of that affiliation is Naked Pop - a breathtaking instrumental showcase of original compositions, traditional fare and songs made famous by the Beatles, Sting, Judy Garland, Steely Dan, the Allman Brothers Band, and Stevie Wonder.
"I came up with the idea for Naked Pop quite a while ago," says Huttlinger. "After college, I played a lot of weddings, restaurants and parties - wherever the gig took me. About two weeks into it, I got tired of playing the same old pop tunes the same way everyone else was playing them. So on slow nights I'd mess around with tunes I'd never heard anyone do as solo pieces. Basically I looked at it as paid practice. Soon people started asking me where they could buy my records. I logged the idea away."
Born in Washington, D.C., Huttlinger descended from two lines of prominent journalists. His grandfather on his mother’s side, Fred Walker, was an editor of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, reporting directly to its owner and publisher, William Randolph Hearst. Huttlinger’s father, Joseph, was a White House correspondent and a publisher of his own newsletter on the oil industry. “My dad took my mom to the White House on their first date,” Huttlinger says, “and while they were walking around, President Truman came out and said, ‘Hi, Joe.’ That got Mom’s attention.”
When Huttlinger’s father died in 1964, his mother moved with her six children to northern California. "My mom played piano all the time—almost every evening," Huttlinger recalls. "It was real comforting to hang out and listen. She wasn’t trained, but she had a real melodic sense about her."
By the age of 12, Huttlinger had begun music lessons and by 14 he had settled on the guitar. Soon after he graduated from high school, a relative left him a small inheritance. He decided to use this windfall to study at Berklee College of Music, the Boston-based academic home of such musical luminaries as Quincy Jones, Kevin Eubanks, Melissa Etheridge, Brandford Marsalis, Bruce Cockburn, and Paula Cole. It was there that Huttlinger found he had a knack for music theory and harmony. "All that made sense to me," he says.
Huttlinger graduated cum laude from Berklee in 1984 and moved to Nashville. During the eighteen years since that move, Huttlinger has established himself as a top-notch session player, composer, arranger, bandleader, songwriter, and sideman.
During the early ‘90’s, John Denver’s tour manager and producer Kris O’Connor heard Huttlinger on another project and was so impressed that he recommended him for Denver’s band. Huttlinger toured, recorded and performed on television with Denver from 1994 until the singer’s death in 1997.
Huttlinger has performed on numerous Grammy-winning and Grammy-nominated projects. He has also been nominated for an Emmy for music he both composed and performed for a PBS special. His performances have been used in several national TV series, including the PBS Nature special "Let This Be A Voice." He created the theme song for ESPN’s Flyfishing America, a program on which he recently made his first "guest fisherman" appearance.
Peers consider Huttlinger one of today’s finest fingerstyle guitarists. Dirty Linen magazine labeled him "….a powerhouse guitarist," and Vintage Guitar said, "Fingerpicking phenom Peter Huttlinger has succeeded in a big way… [This] player is a major talent."
Huttlinger lives in Nashville and plays everywhere.
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