Despite his early start in the ukulele, he initially showed no aptitude for the instrument, but quickly became a proficient guitar player, studying at one point with both Pepe Romero and his father Celedonio.
[1] King attended Old Dominion University and later took a post as a guitar teacher at Eckerd College—where he taught for 30 years[2]—in St. Petersburg, a city that became his home for life.
In 2008, the Journal of the Society for American Music called King "perhaps the world's only true classical 'ukulele virtuoso'".
[5] King is featured in a short segment in the extras on the DVD release of Mighty Uke: The Amazing Comeback of a Musical Underdog, a 2010 documentary on the ukulele.
According to The Journal of the Society for American Music, John King is "the worlds only truly classical ukulele virtuoso".