Winner of the San Diego Music Award for Best Acoustic Performer, John Katchur has performed as opening act for such legendary artists as Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Steven Stills, Don McLean, Arlo Guthrie, and many others.
As a performer, John has a strong reputation for impeccable and captivating delivery. The San Diego Troubadour magazine says,
“John Katchur plays guitar with equal measures of grace, complexity, and fearless confidence with an unbelievably effortless,
sonorous, aching voice.”
His recorded music blends singer/songwriter sensibilities with powerful rock textures and haunting atmospheres. Acoustic guitars delicate and fierce, smooth airy vocals, crunching electric guitars, organic keys and organs form “lush soundsacapes like magic flying carpets” ~San Diego Troubadour
Besides professional venues and house concerts, John has performed for countless types of events. He can tailor his set to fit your needs, from instrumental jazz, chord melody, fingerstyle, blues, folk and rock – to song delivery that includes vocals for weddings, memorial services, romantic occasions, parties, restaurants or bars.
Check out my YouTube channel or visit my website for videos of performances, and feel free to contact me. Tell me what you’re looking for and let me see if I can provide exactly what you want.
Get in touch
Tel: (619) 318-4612
Upcoming Performances
Fish Boon
Sat Dec 21 6pm-9
2628 Gateway Rd, Carlsbad, CA
Heroes
Wood Fired Pizza
Sun Dec 22 12pm-3
4355 CA-78, Santa Ysabel, CA
Vision
Thu Feb 6 7p.m.
Concert with Joe Rathburn
REVIEW
JOHN KATCHUR CONCERT
NOVEMBER 16 2024
REVIEW
I don’t get out much. That’s because when I do, I am often disappointed in the event, or at least I do not get what I expected.
I did get out recently because I went to a house concert which presented guitarist and vocalist, John Katchur. I have seen John many times. I marveled at his music each time I saw him. Seeing that John has returned to the stage, I knew that I did not need to “manage my expectations.” I expected a really, really poignant, inspiring evening. And I really, really got one.
I was taken aback, in the best of ways. John has returned with an exuberance and relaxed demeanor which is infectious.
Once introduced, John and host, Dave Howard, percussion, launched into I Like It from his CD, Friend of the Moon. The rhythm pulseated and part of the unique grab of his sound is his uncanny syncing of phrase to rhythm, when he lays in his voice. And the concert began.
The whole performance was an immersion—a being enfolded into something new and grand and coming back out of it later, wearing the residue of phrases which had aligned and settled into familiar pockets of the past.
Friend of the Moon
“I want to be a long-time friend of the moon
To live my life for the joy it brings
And work out all my problems in a tune
Doesn’t that sound like fun to you?”
Yes. It does.
Alice
“Why, Alice, why,
Must you walk all over me
You are always looking somewhere
Where you can’t be reached.
I will leave the door open…for you”
Yeah, tell me about it.
John’s in-depth knowledge of all that a guitar can do, enables him to release sounds that transcend the usual. But instead of a listener’s reaction like “wow I just got impaled by very rich bass passage” the result is “How did he know I felt that way?” And therein lies the magic of mastery. And John is a master of what he wants to express: hard-hitting, delicate or just plain sad. And the sad musings are just as relishing.
It’s so satisfying to watch someone present pure performance, without gimics and showboating—someone who knows their craft so well that it resides way north of “look at how damn skilled I am” to a finely- tempered message that is unique and acutely personal to each and every listener.
Dotted throughout the evening were threads of story, speculation, very-present situations, check-ins with the audience. Each comment wound into an unexpected surprise and was met with bursts of laughter. Wonderful punctuation. Catnip. And it all worked to further circle in the listeners, weaving a new group of friends who will seek out the next concert date of…John Katchur.
Melissa McCracken