Last week it was Al Di Meola and Angus Young -- how's that for a pair? -- and now this weekend the run of guitar greats in Pittsburgh continues with Leo Kottke, the famous fingerpicking acoustic player, performing a solo show Saturday night at the Carnegie Lecture Hall as part of the Calliope series.

Kottke arrives with nothing new on the agenda. His last outing was a 2005 collaboration with Phish bassist Mike Gordon on "Sixty Six Steps," a record with intricate fretwork, island beats and laid-back jam-rock takes on songs such as Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" and Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion."

A year before that he issued an album of solo instrumental pieces called "Try and Stop Me" named ... because people don't want him to make those kind of records?

"No," he says in an e-mail interview, "It's a reference to the cactus on the cover. It's growing in two opposing directions. I myself am easy to stop. And somebody should have stopped me when I named that record."

Kottke, originally from Athens, Ga., was inspired as a kid by the early folk and Delta blues players. He debuted in 1969 with "12-String Blues" and, soon after, recorded his breakthrough "6- and 12-String Guitar" for mentor John Fahey's Takoma label.

Kottke was soon signed to Capitol, where he made six albums running the gamut from rock to jazz to bluegrass and was sometimes nudged into the role of singer-songwriter.

In the '80s, he took up residence at the new age label Private Music and, according to much of the bio material written about Kottke, his style shifted toward classical due in part to tendon damage in his fingers. That was in addition to hearing loss he reportedly suffered from a firecracker incident as a kid.

Asked about the effect of those things, Kottke flashes his oddball sense of humor: "You've been reading Wikipedia. It is not to be trusted. But, no problems. Pineapple, though, can really screw up my singing. The only emotion I can't take on stage with me is anger. It's worse than pineapple."

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PG audio

Listen to a "Believe Your Ears" podcast with Ernie Hawkins, who opens for Leo Kottke.

Hear the Hawkins interview and browse the full lineup of Post-Gazette podcasts.

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(Pineapple, we should point out, did work for Carmen Miranda, but, yeah, she was a wee bit cuter.)

In the '90s, Kottke collaborated with the likes of Rickie Lee Jones, Lyle Lovett and Margo Timmins before moving on to his Phish-y work. Kottke declines to specify any favorite collaborations, saying, "I have no complaints about any of them. If I picked a favorite I'd be asking for trouble. I've never laughed more nor been more afraid than when I worked with Rickie Lee Jones."

The Calliope concert on Saturday will consist of about 90 percent instrumental pieces and 10 percent vocal, according to Kottke, who says, "My curiosity is in the guitar. The same thing that hooked me on the guitar in the first place -- appetite and curiosity -- is still operating."

When it's mentioned that more kids are busy playing Guitar Hero than the actual instrument, Kottke riffs on the wonders of guitarists at both ends of the age spectrum.

"I hear people playing who baffle me. I can't see how they're doing it -- either so soon because they're so young or despite being laid up because they're so old. It's frustrating, this bafflement, only because I've never really done my homework, the quotidian, day-to-day scut work of concentrated study, and I owe it to people like Federico [Franco], or Snoozer [Quinn], to do that ... they did. I admire these players.

And, he adds, "I don't know what Guitar Hero is."