Artist description 5 piece acoustic/electric grunge country folk rock

Music Style Alternative Country

Musical Influences American Roots

Similar Artists Kevin Welch, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, John Prine

Artist History As profound and prolific as Kevin Welch’s career has been thus far, the best is yet to come. With a voice that is part drop-forged steel, part hand-rubbed mahogany, this singer/songwriter defies categorization. While he’s been marketed as a country artist, his songs draw from a myriad of influences and embrace a multitude of styles. As a songwriter and performer, he mesmerizes the listener with carefully crafted images and a superb delivery. Kevin Welch left his native Oklahoma when he was 17, traveling extensively before settling in Nashville in 1978. His musical talents found a home at Sony Tree, where he established himself as a staff writer, deftly penning songs for artists as diverse as Waylon Jennings, Roger Miller, Trisha Yearwood, Ricky Skaggs and The Highwaymen, among others. Despite his success in writing for others, Kevin Welch’s compositions were best expressed in his own voice. In 1990, Warner Reprise signed him and released his debut album, Kevin Welch, to popular and critical acclaim. The Mother Road, his ode to Route 66, put a fresh spin on that historic highway and its allegory of freedom. The poignant Letter to Dustin, written to his son, achingly expressed the longing felt by every parent who is separated from a child. That dazzling first effort was followed by 1992’s Western Beat. The album’s title is not only an apt summation of Welch’s western and rock musical influences, it also is derived from the "beat generation" writers such as Jack Kerouac. And like Kerouac’s characters, the protagonists in Welch’s songs seek the treasure that lies beneath the surface of things. On the records first cut, Early Summer Rain, Welch writes: "I dream with my eyes open/I see with my eyes closed." But the material is far from grim. Optimism abounds in the philosophical The Other Side and Happy Ever After (Comes One Day at a Time). The slice of Americana in Sam’s Town tells the story of a man who strikes it rich but finds true wealth only after he loses everything.It’s this idea of the true wealth of friends and doing what you love that brought Welch and his friends and musical colleagues Kieran Kane, Mike Henderson, Tammy Rogers and Harry Stinson to form Dead Reckoning Records in 1995. That same year, Welch released his first cd on his own label, the critically acclaimed Life Down Here On Earth. Western Beat has been called a small town love story, and Life Down Here On Earth an adventure novel that passes through joyous boasting, self-deprecating wit and romantic loneliness that never loses sight of the big picture. It’s hard to find a more frank assessment of humanity than Pushing Up Daisies and the rollicking title track, where Welch belts out, “There’s gonna be two dates on your tombstone, all your friends will read ‘em. But all that’s gonna matter is that little dash between ‘em.”

Albums Life Down Here On Earth, Beneath My Wheels, 11/12/13 Live in Melbourne

Location Nashville, TN - USA

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