Curtis Eller

A fantastic and highly interesting singer/songwriter who’s based in NEW YORK, Curtis Eller has successfully brought a number of affects to his unorthodox folk-rock eyesight. The banjo-playing Eller’s function comes with an old-time experience, drawing on a good amount of immediate or indirect affects in the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s (including nation vocalist Jimmie Rodgers, cowboy icon Gene Autry, and Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson). But Eller’s materials is certainly definately not a carbon duplicate of music from that period — there is enough of rock and roll bite and attitude in his rootsy function, which also includes components of Bob Dylan, Neil Little, as well as the ballsy outlaw nation of Johnny Money and Merle Haggard. Eller, consciously or unconsciously, reminds listeners what Dylan, Money, Son Home, Pete Seeger, and Haggard have as a common factor — all of them are known to be effective storytellers, and storytelling is certainly where Eller himself shines. The Queens resident is actually fascinated with American background; he has discussed the American Civil Battle, silent film superstar Buster Keaton (who he considers a solid impact), and aviatrix Amelia Earhart. Frequently, Eller’s subject material could be dark; “Alaska” is approximately a mining devastation, and “The Execution of Dark Gemstone” was motivated with a bizarre 1929 occurrence when a circus elephant was paraded through the roads of a little Texas city and “performed” (the mayor had taken the initial shot) after attacking and eliminating a local female. Circuses, actually, are a main curiosity of Eller, who analyzed juggling when he was a youngster and phone calls his music group Curtis Eller’s American Circus. Eller offers often stated that his objective like a performer is definitely to “catch the spirit from the Hartford Circus Open fire of 1944,” a tragedy that price 167 people their lives and became the most severe catastrophe in the Connecticut city’s background. A circus inferno is definitely a bizarre method to measure creative or creative achievement, but, Eller’s eccentricity is definitely part of why is his work therefore interesting. A site on the annals of Hartford offers published the lyrics to “Hartford, CT,” an Eller track describing the Globe Battle II-era tragedy. Another uncommon point about Eller may be the method he takes on the banjo, his main instrument. Rather than playing it within an exuberant, bluegrass-like style, Eller frequently makes the banjo audio moody, haunting, and dark — in Eller’s hands, the banjo turns into the perfect device for tunes about mining disasters and circus tragedies. Originally from Detroit, MI, Eller paid attention to a number of music when he was developing up in the Engine Town — everyone from Child Home to Iggy Pop. After departing Detroit, he spent a while in NEW YORK, where he was the musical movie director for an area theatre troupe. But Eller grew disenchanted using the theatre and relocated to NEW YORK (where he produced music his main concentrate). Eller’s debut recording, 1890, premiered in 2000 and was accompanied by the three-song EP Banjo Music for Funerals 2 yrs later on. In 2004, Eller released his second full-length recording, TAKING ON Serpents Again.