Jason Eklund
Jason Eklund (* 1970 in Indiana ) is an American musician, singer and songwriter who mixes the areas of Alternative Country , Americana , Folk and Blue Yodeling .
Life
Jason Eklund grew up in Indiana and southern Illinois . He learned several instruments at an early age and, in addition to guitar and harmonica, also plays the piano and banjo . In high school he played in a punk band. After three semesters of acting at Eastern Illinois University, he decided to implement the influence of folk greats like Woody Guthrie directly into his lifestyle. He moved to Massachusetts , where he was a street musician in Cambridge . By chance he found Pete Seeger's address in a banjo textbook , hitchhiked to New York and was taken in by Seeger and his wife. He was allowed to make himself useful as a craftsman in the country house.
Back in Illinois he performed in clubs and was again a street musician. On the fringes of the Chicago Blues Festival , Eklund was discovered in 1992 by Bruce Kaplan , who founded the Flying Fish Records label . Kaplan offered him a record deal. Eklund's debut, Jason Eklund , was recorded in Boulder, Colorado and released in 1993. The obvious influences on this collection of fifteen original songs range from Bob Dylan to Howlin 'Wolf to Elvis Presley and Woody Guthrie . In 1995 the successor Lost Causeway appeared on the same label, which now belonged to the Rounder Records Group. Here the style was a bit more uniform and the music more catchy, which was also responsible for many Texan blues and country musicians who supported Eklund.
Eklund received a lot of praise for his song mix and for his own songs, which often sounded like traditional material from decades ago. The characters in his songs travel around ( I Am the Road , Walk One More Mile, etc.), feel betrayed by politics ( On the Pulse ) or fall in love with waitresses ( Loves in Oklahoma ). There was no broad audience for it. The two CDs came to Germany only as remaining stock via the mail order company Glitterhouse . In 1997 Jason Eklund released a CD together with folk musician Roger Johnson, which received little attention. In 1998 the double CD Dead Heart Days was released on the obscure label Lucky 13 Recordings , which Eklund did not release under his own name. He called himself Captain Stringbean now. In 2002 he came back under his own name with a CD, which was partly supervised by producer Gurf Morlix ; Morlix also played a variety of instruments on this release, which more than ever underlined Eklund's political ambitions in the Guthrie line-up. It was about civil rights, immigrants and the plight of the farmers. Slaid Cleaves could be won for the vocal support . Jason Eklund tours a lot, mostly playing in clubs and smaller concert halls.
Discography
- Jason Eklund (1993)
- Lost Causeway (1995)
- Streamliner's Duet (with Roger Johnson) (1997)
- Dead Heart Days (as Captain Stringbean, 1998)
- Come'n 'Gone (2002)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Eklund biography on answers.com
- ↑ Jason Eklund's MySpace page
- ↑ Jason Eklund at Allmusic (English)
- ↑ CD review on Green Man Review - The Roots and Branches of Arts and Culture (Engl.) ( Memento of the original on 16 December 2010 at the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Eklund, Jason |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American folk and country musician, singer, and songwriter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1970 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Indiana , USA |