West Texas acoustic guitarist Hayden Pedigo isn’t quite what he seems.
Offstage, he’s Mr. Offbeat, wearing droll costumes, making surreal videos and putting up billboards asking filmmaker Harmony Korine, his hero, to visit the Panhandle. The Italian fashion house Gucci took notice of Pedigo’s antics and off-kilter fashions and hired him to walk a Hollywood runway in 2021.
But onstage, the 30-year-old Pedigo is strictly old school. Live In Amarillo, Texas, out this month on the Brooklyn-based label Mexican Summer, is a gentle throwback to the finger-picking guitar instrumentals of Leo Kottke and John Fahey. On the album, he says his unhurried guitar style is a product of growing up in the Panhandle.
“The pauses in my music [are like] the refreshing flat plains that go on forever and ever,” he says. “The city slogan should be ‘Amarillo: The Long Pause.’ Or ‘Amarillo: Not For Beginners.’”
The album isn’t Pedigo’s first rodeo in West Texas. At age 24, he ran for Amarillo City Council, fueled by a series of jokey campaign videos. The clips earned him glowing profiles in Rolling Stone and on PBS, but Amarillo voters weren’t swayed. He lost the race.
