Nelson's 45-years and counting career has run the gamut from solo classical recitals and folk concerts, to club and festival dates with country, rockabilly, jazz, swing, and rhythm & blues bands. Along the way Nelson has played with such notables as Tom Paxton, Buddy Guy, Wayne Hancock and long-time influence Danny Gatton. For years a mainstay of the Rochester NY music scene Nelson’s acoustic guitar show blends jazz, folk, classical, and Americana, with original compositions and improvisations in programs that and might include references to Miles Davis, Flatt and Scruggs, Franz Schubert, John Fahey, Leo Kotke, The Ventures, the "Folk Scare," the "British Invasion," and the occasional TV-theme-stump-the-audience medley.
Over the years Nelson has opened for John Renbourn, David Bromberg, Tommy Emmanuel, Leo Kotke, Spider John Koerner, Shawn Phillips and others, and has done acoustic guitar concerts together with Laurence Juber (Paul McCartney & Wings), Mark Goldenberg (Jackson Brown), Muriel Anderson (NAMM All Star Guitar Night), Stephen Bennett (harp guitar maestro), Teje Gerken (Acoustic Guitar Mag), Al Petteway (Ken Burns documentaries), Don Alder, Vicki Genfan, Tony McManus, Harvey Reid, Peter Lang, Mike Chapdelaine and numerous others on today's fingerstyle guitar scene.
Performances credits include: Montreal Jazz Festival; Time/Warner Jazz Festival; Owen Sound Summer Folk Festival; Little Mountain Folk Festival; Fretted Instrument Guild of America; The NAAM Shows in Nashville & Los Angeles; and the Newport, Montreal, Healdsburg and Woodstock Luthier Invitational Guitar Festivals, where Nelson has been in demand as a player for many of the nation’s top guitar builders.
A composer and recording artist, Nelson has been published in Acoustic Guitar Magazine, reviewed in Just Jazz Magazine, and can be heard on Heartland Records, BKN-jr Records, and Sampler Records.
Nelson studied classical guitar with Stanley Watson in Rochester NY, jazz guitar with Gene Bertoncini at Eastman School of Music and music theory at the University of Rochester.
Teaching credits include workshops at the University of Rochester (NY), S.U.N.Y. at Oswego; residencies at Maryland Summer Center For The Arts, technique and theory workshops at music and guitar festivals; and twenty five years teaching guitar at The Hochstein Music School in Rochester, NY.
Video Links, contact info and more can be found on the homepage at http://KinlochNelson.com