Pete Huttlinger

After a day of rigorous music classes at Berklee College, Peter Huttlinger would grab a friend, rush to the Harvard Square subway station and spend the afternoon there playing bluegrass 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.  He played lead guitar for John Denver for four years and has later backed such other notables as LeAnn Rimes, Wynonna, Donna Summer, Brenda Lee, Engelbert Humperdinck, Sara Evans, Brad Paisley and George Burns.  In 2000, he won the National Fingerpick Guitar Championship, and he continues to be one of the Nashville Chamber Orchestra’s most popular guest soloists.

In March 2007, Huttlinger made his triumphant debut at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Theater, appearing there with pianist Chris Nole and vocalist Mollie Weaver in a program of original music and cover tunes that incited spontaneous bursts applause throughout the show and a sustained standing ovation at the end.

The Carnegie Hall performance coincided with the release of Huttlinger’s all-instrumental album, Things Are Looking Up.    Twelve of the 15 songs in the new collection are the ace guitarist’s own compositions.  It also includes a spellbinding version of George Harrison’s  “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

Huttlinger has lately become LeAnn Rimes’ guitarist of choice for special events.  He was her sole accompanist when she guest-starred in 2006 on the famed BBC-TV series, Live From Abbey Road.  (A clip of that performance is posted on You Tube, as is Huttlinger’s bravura—and witty—rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.”)

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. (Clark Gable reputedly based his role in the 1958 movie Teacher’s Pet on Walker.)  Huttlinger’s father, Joseph, was a White House correspondent and 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.  She used to tell me about going to parties at Lyndon Johnson’s house.”

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 Ethridge, 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 with honors in 1984 and moved to Nashville.  During the 23 years since that move, Huttlinger has established himself as an artist, a  top-notch session player, composer, arranger, bandleader, songwriter and sideman.

During the early ’90s, 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 says he learned a lot from Denver on the tours throughout the U. S., Germany, Ireland, England, Scotland, Denmark, Vietnam and Australia.  “He was the consummate entertainer. He knew how to read an audience, and he knew delivery better than anyone else I’ve ever worked with.  During our last six months of touring, he would come back on stage after the intermission by himself.  He’d sit down and start singing ‘Home On The Range,’ and everybody in the audience would start laughing. They thought he was kidding.  But he’d just keep singing.  By midway of the song, the whole audience would be singing with him.  It didn’t matter whether it was 2,000 or 10,000 people, he’d have them all singing.”

In addition to touring with Denver, Huttlinger played and sang on his Grammy winning John Denver: All Aboard as well as on the gold-selling albums  John Denver: The Wildlife Concert and The Best Of John Denver Live.

On television, Huttlinger performed on the A&E special John Denver: The Wildlife Concert and appeared on the PBS documentaries about Denver’s life Let There Be A Voice and John Denver Remembered: A Song’s Best Friend.  He both composed and performed the music for the Emmy-nominated PBS special Tennessee Traveling And Treasures and created the theme song for ESPN’s Flyfishing America, a program on which he has also made a guest appearance.

Competing at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, Huttlinger out-matched 37 of the world’s nimblest guitarists to win the 2000 National Fingerpick Guitar Championship.  In 2004, he was one of only three acoustic guitarists invited to play at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival.

Huttlinger has been featured in cover articles and profiles for Fingerstyle Guitar, Vintage Guitar, Guitar Player and Acoustic Guitar .   He has created for Homespun Records & Tapes such bestselling instructional videos as The Guitar of John Denver: Taught by Pete Huttlinger and Learn To Play The Songs Of Jim Croce.

Huttlinger lives in Nashville and plays everywhere.  Except subways.