Asked about the ease, or difficulty, of blending genres in his music, master guitarist Leo Kottke headed off in another direction.

“My whole life has been dictated by my right hand. You take Pat Metheny, John Scofield, or Jim Raney and it’s dictated by the left hand,” Kottke begins, getting into a discourse about the differences between his finger-picking style versus the way other players chord and strum the instrument. Then he realizes he’s not really addressing the question, and says as much. So he recalibrates, and says, “Styles don’t count for much. They result from trends, and trends don’t last. The categories blur. A segment, a line, can go anywhere.”