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in New York, and he came back with Aretha Franklin, B.B. King stuff and all these records that
weren’t common here. Then in 1968, for the first time my mother let me go to a concert. I don’t
know why she thought it was dangerous [chuckles], but I was 13, and it was the American Folk
Blues Festival 1968, with T-Bone Walker and John Lee Hooker and Ed Taylor, Chicago blues band
and Big Joe Williams, Jimmy Reed and all these guys.

BiTS: What a fabulous lineup.

KL: Yeah, and it was my first concert, it was the first live concert in my life. Of course I had a
shock [laughing], and then I had an LP with T-Bone Walker for Christmas, and I started putting
on the record and trying to play along with the records. I also had this reel-to-reel tape recorder.
So I would go to the library and borrow records with B.B. King and different kind of and I would
try to play along with them. Then in 69, in the spring of 69, B.B. King came to Europe the first
time, and he was playing in Copenhagen. I went there and that was even a bigger shock for me.
He blew me away and after that I saw him two or three times in 70 and 71, I think. He was here
quite a few times at the time.

BiTS: You were still learning to play the guitar at that stage, were you?

KL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and after I heard B.B. King, I put a mic on my pickup on my acoustic guitar
and I tried to play some B.B. King licks.

BiTS: When you were listening to the records were you trying to play along note to note?

KL: No, I never had that patience. I wasn't skilled enough to do that. I think, I don't know, but I
always just played with it, picked up things and played along with it. And I did that with most of
my records if it was possible. Some
of the jazz records, it was kind of
hard and when I left school, I got
together with some guys I never
knew before, and we made this
band called Himmelexpressen. In
the beginning, it was all kind of
rock music and a little blues, for
my sake [chuckles], and different
things. At the time, I tried to learn
to play Latin music. I got very
interested in Latin music. I think

through George Benson, actually
because he made some records in
71/72 that were easy for me to
follow because he played jazz in a
very bluesy way.

BiTS: That's true.

KL: So in a way, it was easier for
me. I was very fond of Wes
Montgomery and Kenny Burrell
Himmelexpressen
and these guys, and I loved Jimmy
Smith. My biggest wish was a
Hammond organ [chuckling]. That was out of my reach at that time. But then in this group, in the
beginning it was more like a Brazilian music/ sounding band and the jazz we were playing, and
it was mainly me.