By Sam A. Marshall for Grateful Web
Even by his usually busy standards, 2023 looks to be a pretty chunky year for the pioneering West Coast rock guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. Usually, he and his stellar faculty of musical masters are holding a full schedule of workshops by now at the music camp, Fur Peace Ranch, which he runs with his wife Vanessa out of Pomeroy, Ohio. (I live in Cincinnati, but even for me that is a fur peace to get there.) And he usually has both solo “Jorma tours” – as he calls them – as well as periodic Hot Tuna tours with his life-long musical soul mate, bassist Jack Casady.
But as the now-83-year-old guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee told us in a recent phone interview, this year’s going to be quite a bit different. No surprise – as the news was already announced months ago – is the booking of a fall Hot Tuna tour that will be the career-capping, final run of the Electric version of the band, with Kaukonen and Casady being joined again by longtime Tuna drummer Justin Guip. And though Kaukonen has put in-person workshops at Fur Peace on hold at the present time, he is still involved in a number of private workshops early in the summer and doing a number of solo guitar shows soon after that. After that, he gears up for that fall slate of ElectricTuna shows. So much music and musical knowledge to share – and so little time!