
Eric Andersen
Latest Release
Songpoet, Released January 6
Y&T Music / EARecords
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Photo credit: Cheryl Prashker
Hear
“Blue River,” Amy Helm
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“Foghorn,” Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams
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About
Bio
“Eric Andersen is one of our finest singers and songwriters, in the most literal sense of
that tradition… the most elegant of singers.”
–-David Fricke, Rolling Stone
“A singer and songwriter of the first rank.”
—The New York Times
“An American master.”
-–Robert Palmer
“Eric Andersen is a great ballad singer.”
-–Bob Dylan
Eric Andersen first came to prominence as a performer in Greenwich Village in the early
1960s and immediately became part of the Village folk and songwriter scene (along with
Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk and Bob Dylan) at the epicenter of the
American Greenwich Village singer-songwriter explosion.
Aside from his own classics, he’s co-written songs with Bob Weir (The Grateful Dead),
Townes Van Zandt, Rick Danko, and Lou Reed. His songs have been covered by many
artists including Bob Dylan, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Judy Collins, Fairport Convention,
Rick Nelson, John Denver, Linda Ronstadt, The Grateful Dead, Peter, Paul & Mary, The
Blues Project, Gillian Welch, Linda Thompson, and Rick Danko. Over the past fifty
years, Eric has toured the world and released over thirty CDs of original music. In the
early 1990s Andersen recorded two trio-harmony albums with The Band’s Rick Danko
and Norwegian singer Jonas Fjeld (Danko/Fjeld/Andersen).
Featuring 41-tracks on digital (EARecords) and 42-tracks on CD – 3CD set (Y&T
(Music), A Tribute To a Songpoet: Songs of Eric Andersen comes out in late 2022,
featuring Bob Dylan, Scarlet Rivera, Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams, Amy Helm,
Mary Chapin Carpenter, Janis Ian, Wesley Stace, Linda Ronstadt, Lenny Kaye, Dom
Flemons, and Rick Danko.
Aired nationally on PBS in 2021, The Songpoet (a documentary about Eric) follows
Eric’s remarkable 50-year journey in America and Europe that continues today as he
writes and records with a poetic passion. With unprecedented access to Andersen’s life
and his personal archives the film (will be) is a study on the culture of fame, the fragility
of an artist’s career and the integrity of the artist as it reveals the indestructible energy
that drives the artist and writer Eric Andersen in short — a glimmering mirror and
portrait of his times.
Eric is also featured in the Joni Mitchell – Woman of Heart and Mind American Masters
documentary, the Wildflower Festival film with Judy Collins, Tom Rush, and Arlo
Guthrie, the rock film Festival Express and the documentary Greenwich Village: Music
That Defined a Generation.
Eric Andersen’s Woodstock Under The Stars (Y&T Music), released in 2020, is a 3CD
set with thirty-six tracks (including an introduction track) from concerts, studio sessions
and webcast. Recorded between 1991 and 2011, the performances feature special
guests John Sebastian, Eric Bazilian, Artie Traum, Garth Hudson, Happy Traum, Joe
Flood, Inge Andersen, and Rick Danko, Jonas Fjeld. MOJO called it “timeless” and
called Eric “one of the ‘60s folk scene’s most poetic singer-songwriters.”
In 2018, Sony/Legacy Recordings issued THE ESSENTIAL ERIC ANDERSEN (42-track
digital release, 33-track two-CD Set) retrospective release covering fifty years of his
recorded history from Today is the Highway to Blue River, and Ghosts Upon the Road
and Beat Avenue and on to The Cologne Concert album and unreleased New York
recordings across multiple labels with liner notes by Lou Reed biographer Anthony
DeCurtis.
Mingle With The Universe: The Worlds of Lord Byron (Meyer Records) was released in
May 2017 on CD and Vinyl formats. “Byron was a born songwriter whose ceaseless
waves of rhymes presented an endless sea for the ships of song.” All songs on the
album featured the romantic poet’s stanzas with Eric’s music. Included are two original
Andersen tracks: “Hail to the Curled Darling” and “Albion” which describe for the listener
a taste of Lord Byron’s controversial and sometimes scandalous life, travels and
writings.
Birth of a Stranger: The Life and Times of Albert Camus (an expanded long-play version
of Shadow and Light of Albert Camus – Meyer Records) was released in 2018 with two
new tracks. The four-song EP was originally released in 2014 on Vinyl and in 2015 on
CD. Eric extrapolated new lyrics from Camus’ novels. Of the original EP version, he said
in an interview, “From the rolling vineyards of Camus I tried to capture four bottles of
good wine that tasted deep and true.” The most recent in his “writer’s projects” releases
is Silent Angel: The Exploded World of Heinrich Böll.
In 1990, Eric won the New York Music Award for his album Ghosts Upon the Road, in
1992 the Spellemannprisen (Norwegian Grammy) for Danko/Fjeld/Andersen and in
2003 The Premio Tenco award with Patti Smith in San Remo, Italy, (which is an award
given to outstanding songwriters). Previous Premio Tenco awards have gone to Randy
Newman, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Lou Reed.
In 2022, he earned an honorary doctorate from Hobart and William Smith Colleges near
where he grew up in the Buffalo, NY area.
Eric Andersen’s poetic songs have entertained and captivated audiences worldwide. He
performs songs which span across all his albums, including his beloved classics “Thirsty
Boots” “Violets of Dawn” and “Close the Door Lightly,” as well as exciting new material.