Tim Eriksen

Although most widely known mainly because the shaven-headed and earringed lead singer of the original folk band Cordelia’s Father, Tim Eriksen can be a respected teacher and a collector of folk song variants. Maybe remarkably, Eriksen’s musical origins are in the traditional western Massachusetts hardcore punk picture from the ’80s, the same picture that spawned Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh. While playing acoustic guitar in a number of punk rings, Eriksen also became immersed in traditional folk music through his parents’ impact. The combination influenced Cordelia’s Dad, a power rock-band that plays just traditional American folk music. Nevertheless, Eriksen’s passions are more common than actually that apparently divergent history; he formally analyzed South Indian Carnatic music while in university, and he keeps a qualification in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University or college. Besides Cordelia’s Father and its own short-lived all-rock offshoot music group Io, Eriksen also sang in the vocal quartet Northampton Tranquility with Cordelia’s Father bassist Cath Oss and performed acoustic guitar in the Bulgarian rock-band Zabe I Babe along with his wife Minja Lausevic. In 2001, while operating as a going to teacher of ethnomusicology at Dartmouth University, Eriksen released his self-titled single debut, an recording of mainly traditional tunes documented reside in one five-hour program, with Eriksen associated himself on acoustic guitar, fiddle, and banjo.