With his 1969 album 6- and 12-string guitar, Leo Kottke single-handedly revived and reinvented the acoustic 12-string guitar with a new level of sophistication and virtuosity.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, he established himself as one of the most popular and instrumental solo guitarists – on six-string as well as 12-string.

In 1990, Kottke teamed up with Bob Taylor to design his own 12-string, becoming the second of only three signature artists in Taylor history (Dan Crary was the first, Doyle Dykes was the most recent). The Leo Kottke Signature Model used Taylor’s largest body style, the jumbo, along with a custom bracing pattern to produce the robust tone that Kottke is known for. A cutaway provided additional access up the neck. In contrast to it’s sound, the LKSM’s ornamentation is quite subdued; the body binding is rich Indian rosewood, and the ebony fingerboard looks like that of a classical guitar, with no pearl inlays.

The 12-string model was so successful that it spawned a six-string version, the LKSM-6 in 1997.