It’s a familiar story, in some ways, of boy-meets-instrument. A young man sits in his room, practicing guitar. His parents are gone for the day, so nobody reminds him to stop what he’s doing and eat. “Before I knew it in those days, 12 or 16 hours had gone by,” says Josh Buskirk. “I’m sure my parents thought I’d lost my mind.”

The slight, quiet and sometimes self-effacing Buskirk is the kind of guy who grabs your attention with his playing, not his manner. Spend any amount of time with the 25-year-old resident of Parkersburg and it becomes clear that his instrument is his life. “They say there are two types of musicians,” he said. “There are those that like music, and there’s people like me who are less cool about it and love their instrument. I love the guitar.”

It was John Fahey who coined the term “American Primitive” guitar, a style of music that reached its popular zenith in the 1970s in the hands of renowned guitarist Leo Kottke. “Basically, the American Primitive style comes from a couple of folk traditions — the Delta blues of the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s, and bluegrass,” Buskirk said. “But there’s also elements of jazz and classical music in it.”

Credit Leo Kottke with Buskirk’s choice of musical style. He recalls a performance of the guitarist on the PBS program “Austin City Limits” when he was younger. “I was completely mesmerized by what he was doing,” Buskirk said. “I taped the repeat of that performance and watched it over and over again for months.”


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