ABOUT THE ARTISTS Page 2

Page 1: Peter Case, Chris Smither, Mark Erelli, Amy Speace, Karl Mullen, Slaid Cleaves, Garrison Starr, RB Morris,

Page 2: Mary Gauthier, Troy Campbell, Dave Alvin, Sam Baker, Anne McCue, Gurf Morlix, Jeff Talmadge

Get the Flash Player to see this content.	Mary Gauthier “Truth-tellers.” That’s Mary Gauthier’s term for songwriters she admires. It’s also a fitting description for Mary, who fearlessly travels to the emotional depths of her soul to craft starkly personal songs that are universal in their meaning. Abandoned as an infant in a New Orleans orphanage, adopted into a dysfunctional Louisiana family, Mary struggled with drugs and delinquency as a teenager and depression and alcoholism as an adult. She began turning her personal turmoil into music at age 35, and quickly took her place as one of the most thoughtful and articulate troubadours of this generation. www.marygauthier.com
Get the Flash Player to see this content.	Troy Campbell Troy Campbell was born in a small town near Dayton, Ohio, and played with his brother Mike in a rock & roll band, the Highwaymen. Inspired by Alejandro Escovedo to make the move to Austin, they picked up guitarist Scrappy Jud Newcomb and changed the band’s name to Loose Diamonds. The Diamonds toured constantly and acquired a national reputation during the roots-rock boom of the ’90s. Since the band’s heyday, Troy has released three critically praised albums as a solo artist, balancing his musical work with an expanding career as a producer of documentaries and animated short films. Troy introduced me to a number of other artists included in this film. www.troycampbell.com
Get the Flash Player to see this content.	Dave Alvin Dave Alvin grew up steeped in the blues. Son of a union organizer, he was raised in the blue-collar Los Angeles suburb of Downey, listening to border radio and later hanging out with the likes of Big Joe Turner and Lightnin’ Hopkins. With his older brother Phil, he founded influential L.A. band The Blasters, which blended blues, rockabilly, and Bakersfield country influences and played thousands of gigs in the ’80s and ’90s. Equally at home on electric and acoustic guitars, Dave is a walking encyclopedia of American music. He most recently recorded and toured with a stellar all-female band, the Guilty Women. www.davealvin.com
Get the Flash Player to see this content.	Sam Baker The first time I ever heard Sam Baker was in 2005 at Canadian folksinger Fred Eaglesmith’s annual charity picnic in rural southern Ontario. A bright silvery moon had just risen after a torrential rainstorm when a long-haired man in blue denims, tanned and weathered like a figure from the Wild West, strapped on a left-handed guitar and proceeded to sing the most remarkable songs I’d ever heard. His flat West Texas accent and understated manner underscored the poetry of his lyrics, as he sang about old widowers and lonely women and kids playing baseball and young soldiers sent off to fight someone else’s war. www.sambakermusic.com
Get the Flash Player to see this content.	Anne McCue Anne McCue is an Australian-born guitarist and songwriter whose songs have a cinematic quality; many of her songs could easily be expanded into feature-length films. She grew up on the outskirts of Sydney and studied filmmaking at the University of Technology before moving to Melbourne and taking up music full-time in the late ’80s. She is a powerful electric guitarist who makes use of looping technology to create a dense layered sound. I first met her at a house concert with Garrison Starr and Michelle Malone; her unique take on Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” made a lasting impression. Anne was one of the last artists interviewed for the film. www.annemccue.com
Get the Flash Player to see this content.	Gurf Morlix Although he’s better known as a guitarist and producer, Gurf Morlix has developed into a formidable solo artist in recent years. Gurf grew up in Hamburg, N.Y., just down the road from Peter Case; the two played together briefly as teenagers. He has produced records by Lucinda Williams, Blaze Foley, Slaid Cleaves, Mary Gauthier, Ray Wylie Hubbard and many others. Gurf divides the year between his home-based studio in Austin and a cabin on Georgian Bay in Canada, which has been in his family for generations. www.gurfmorlix.com
Get the Flash Player to see this content.	Jeff Talmadge Jeff Talmadge, like Kieran Goss, gave up a career as a lawyer to devote his life to writing and singing songs. His finely-crafted songs, in the tradition of writers like Townes Van Zandt or Guy Clark, echo the lonesome Texas plains where he grew up in a succession of small towns like Crystal City, Uvalde, Iago, and Big Spring. I met him in 2006 at the Riverside Inn in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, a Victorian-era spa that hosted a small regional music festival. His songwriting has won awards at the prestigious Kerrville and Falcon Ridge songwriting competitions. Now living in Atlanta, Jeff tours extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. www.jefftalmadge.com