Earl Klugh

Earl Klugh (KLOO; born 16 September 1953; Detroit, Michigan, United States) is an American acoustic guitarist and composer. Working almost exclusively on a nylon-string classical guitar, Klugh has spent more than five decades cultivating a warm, finger-picked sound that blends jazz, pop, classical and rhythm and blues influences into a style widely regarded as distinctly his own.

Since his 1976 solo debut, he has recorded more than thirty studio albums, placed 23 of them in the Top Ten of Billboard's Jazz Albums chart, five at number one, and earned a Grammy Award alongside thirteen nominations in total.

Early Life

Klugh was raised in Detroit, where his mother regularly took him to the city's celebrated jazz venue, Baker's Keyboard Lounge, an environment that placed him in close proximity to touring musicians from an early age. He began formal piano lessons around the age of three, but switched his attention to the guitar at around ten.

At thirteen he was captivated after seeing guitarist Chet Atkins perform on The Perry Como Show, and he subsequently immersed himself in Atkins's fingerstyle technique, an encounter that shaped the melodic, precise picking style for which he later became known.

Klugh attended Mumford High School in Detroit, and by his mid-teens was already working as a guitar instructor at a local music shop, where he was discovered by saxophonist and flautist Yusef Lateef around 1969.

At Baker's he also met pianist Bill Evans, whom he cited as a formative songwriting influence, and briefly played alongside Chick Corea in an early lineup of Return to Forever. At fifteen, Klugh made his recording debut on Lateef's album Suite 16 (1970).
 

Career
 

Klugh's professional path accelerated when guitarist George Benson, whom he met at Baker's, became an early mentor; Klugh played on Benson's album White Rabbit and, in 1973, joined Benson's touring band for a year, an association Benson credited with helping Klugh secure his first record deal.

Signed to Blue Note Records, Klugh released his self-titled debut album in 1976, which entered the Jazz Albums chart, followed by Living Inside Your Love (1976) and Finger Paintings (1977), the latter earning him the Swing Journal "Best Recording Award for Performance and Sound" from the Japanese jazz publication.

His run of albums through the late 1970s and 1980s, including Heart Strings (1979), Dream Come True (1980) and Crazy for You (1981), which went gold, established him as a leading figure in contemporary and smooth jazz. In 1979 he teamed with pianist Bob James for the collaborative album One on One, which topped the Jazz Albums chart, was certified gold and won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance at the 1981 ceremony; the pair reunited for Two of a Kind (1982) and Cool (1992).

Klugh also recorded Collaboration (1987) with George Benson, certified gold by the RIAA, and Hotel California/Super Guitar Duo (1983) with Hiroki Miyano. His soundtrack credits include How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980, with Hubert Laws) and Marvin and Tige (1983) and Just Between Friends (1986), both alongside composer Patrick Williams.

He signed to Warner Bros. Records in the mid-1980s, and in the early 1990s formed the Earl Klugh Trio with drummer Gene Dunlap and bassist Ralphe Armstrong, releasing The Earl Klugh Trio, Vol. 1 (1991) and, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sounds and Visions, Vol. 2 (1993), a collection built around film themes including "Goldfinger" and "The Thomas Crown Affair".

Klugh remained a frequent collaborator and guest performer with Chet Atkins throughout his career, appearing together on television programmes including Hee Haw and the 1994 special Read My Licks, with Atkins in turn appearing on Klugh's own album Magic in Your Eyes. Later releases on the independent Koch label, Naked Guitar (2005) and The Spice of Life (2008), each brought further Grammy nominations for Best Pop Instrumental Album, and Klugh released HandPicked on the Heads Up label in 2013.

Across his career, he has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Japan, performing as a soloist, with his quartet, his electric band, his "Little Big Band" formation, and with symphony orchestras, drawing on a catalogue of more than fifty orchestral charts arranged by Grammy-winning arrangers including Dave Grusin, Don Sebesky, Johnny Mandel and Clare Fischer.

Personal Life
 

His formative years in Detroit, particularly the time spent with his mother at Baker's Keyboard Lounge, are consistently cited as the foundation of his musical development. Since 2008, Klugh has hosted an annual spring event, Weekend of Jazz, at the Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs, bringing together fellow musicians such as Bob James, Chris Botti, Patti Austin, Chuck Mangione and Spyro Gyra for a multi-day celebration of the genre. His influence is widely acknowledged among contemporary jazz guitarists, with artists including Ken Navarro and Marcus Ford citing him as an inspiration, and his early promotion of the nylon-string classical guitar within jazz and smooth jazz contexts is regarded as a lasting contribution to the genre's instrumental vocabulary.

Current Activities

Klugh continues to perform to audiences worldwide, with his Weekend of Jazz series at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs remaining a fixture of his annual touring calendar, including a scheduled performance there in April 2026.