Andy McKee (born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1979) is an American acoustic guitarist currently signed to CANdYRAT Records. His rarely-seen style of playing and compositional talent has earned him a large fanbase; in late 2006, a live performance of his flagship song, “Drifting” became a Featured Video on YouTube, achieving well over 8,000,000 views and peaking as the highest rated music clip on the site. The video was also featured on the front page of MySpace in July of 2007. Many of McKee’s other songs have experienced similar success on YouTube, such as “Rylynn” and “Africa” (the latter a Toto cover). McKee is currently on a world tour promoting his music, including his latest album, Gates of Gnomeria, which was released on September 10, 2007.
McKee played his first guitar, an Aria nylon string bought by his father, at age 13. Initially underwhelmed by his guitar lessons, McKee’s electric guitar-playing cousin inspired him to continue learning, taking him out for his 16th birthday to see a guitarist named Preston Reed perform live at a clinic. McKee bought an instructional videotape from Reed and began to learn more complex guitar techniques from it, also earning his GED that year in order to drop out of high school. For the next five years, he continued to practice and improve while taking inspiration from guitarists such as Michael Hedges, Don Ross, Billy McLaughlin, Pat Kirtley, and Tommy Emmanuel.
In 2001, McKee released his first album, Nocturne. That same year, he placed third at the National Fingerstyle Guitar Competition in Winfield, Kansas, the youngest competitor to ever place so highly.[1] In 2003, McKee toured in Taiwan with Jacques Stotzem, Isato Nakagawa, and Masaaki Kishibe, and earned first place in Kansas’ Miscellaneous Acoustic Instrument contest with a Ron Spillers harpguitar he purchased from Stephen Bennett in 2002. [2] The instrument can be seen in a number of his songs, such as “Into The Ocean” and “Gates to Gnomeria”.
McKee’s third CD, Art of Motion, was released on CANdYRAT Records in November of 2005 and earned considerable praise from established acoustic guitarists such as Don Ross, whom McKee is currently on the same label with and has noted as one of his favorite artists. Most of the songs that McKee is known for on YouTube appear on the album, which has a handful of tracks carried over from Dreamcatcher as well.
After experiencing a popularity boom thanks to his performances on YouTube and touring extensively throughout much of 2007, McKee returned to the studio to record his fourth full length CD, Gates of Gnomeria. The album contains six new songs, one of which had already been seen on YouTube (“Gates of Gnomeria”), as well as two cover songs. McKee is currently still on tour throughout the world, performing with other CANdyRAT artists and promoting the new album. He recently released a dual DVD with labelmate Antoine Dufour, each artist contributing eight songs to the disc; two of McKee’s are from Gates of Gnomeria.
Self-described as “just this guy from Topeka, Kansas who kind of blew up on the Internet about a week before Christmas,” McKee became an online sensation after videos of his performances were posted to YouTube by his record label. The video for “Drifting” was massively upvoted by users at Digg, spreading McKee’s fame even further.[3] Since then he has appeared by invitation on Woodsongs as well as Last Call with Carson Daly, and his online store completely sold out of his various guitar tablature books; due to massive demand, sheet music for nearly all of his songs is now available to purchase and download from CANdYRAT’s webstore. He has also contributed to Josh Groban’s 2007 Christmas album, Noel, playing guitar on the song “Little Drummer Boy.”
McKee’s influences include: Michael Hedges, Don Ross, Preston Reed, Billy McLaughlin, Björk, Eric Johnson, Steve Lukather, Imogen Heap, Metallica, Joe Satriani, Iron Maiden, Pantera, Steve Erquiaga, Vince Di Cola, Toto, Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Primus, Neil Young, Phil Keaggy, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Pat Metheny and Dream Theater[4][5].
McKee began listening to heavy metal music, such as Dream Theater, at the age of 13. He described on Woodsongs how he was a metal freak during childhood, even performing a Metallica song in his high school talent show. It wasn’t until he saw Preston Reed that his influences began to shift towards acoustic songwriters such as Don Ross and Michael Hedges. Both walks of music continue to influence him, though he has stuck with acoustic music in his professional life.
Article by Wikipedia
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