Ken Champion

Steel acoustic guitar virtuoso Ken Champ was created in Oshkosh, WI, in 1949. After getting his 1st six-string at 12, he in the beginning migrated toward jazz, playing in Madison-area organizations while learning physics in the University or college of Wisconsin. By 1969, Champ was earning plenty of playing music to drop from school, and 2 yrs later on he co-founded the rock and roll & move revival music group Dr. Bop & the Headliners, taking advantage of the ’50s-period nostalgia zeitgeist in fashion because of the strike film American Graffiti. Dr. Bop demonstrated so popular that this music group toured nationally, culminating in 1973 having a weeklong tenure in the famed LA club Whisky a chance Go, and also released a live LP around the group’s personal Poultry label before dissolving in 1978. During his period with Dr. Bop, Champ bought his 1st steel acoustic guitar, and in 1980 he became a member of his first nation automobile, the Horsefeathers Cowboy Music group, which earned small popularity via infrequent looks on Ernest Tubb’s Nashville radio display Midnite Jamboree. He relocated to Chicago in 1985, becoming a member of the house music group at the united states Music Inn before shifting towards the Nashville North; once the city’s honky tonk picture strike the skids in the first ’90s, Champ resorted to teaching acoustic guitar and playing in wedding ceremony rings, although he continued to be a staple of the annual Buck Owens all-star birthday tributes at the neighborhood golf club Schubas. His profession required a dramatic submit 1996, when experimental designer and maker Jim O’Rourke asked him to try out steel acoustic guitar on Smog’s outstanding Crimson Apple Falls LP — following that Champion made an appearance on three of O’Rourke’s single discs, and in 2001 he became a member of drummer Mike Reed’s origins jazz clothing the Treehouse Task. A fixture on Chicago indie rock and roll sessions through the entire 10 years, in 2004 Champ also teamed along with his former music pupil Eric Chial in Decoy Prayer Reaching.