Eric Andersen

b. 14 February 1943, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Andersen arrived in New York in 1964 and was quickly absorbed into the Greenwich Village folk circle. His debut album, Today Is The Highway, was released the following year, but it was a second collection, ’Bout Changes & Things (1966), that established the artist’s reputation as an incisive songwriter. This particular collection featured ‘Violets Of Dawn’ and ‘Thirsty Boots’, compositions that were recorded by several artists including the Blues Project and Judy Collins. Andersen embraced folk rock in an unconventional way when an electric backing was added to this second album and issued as ’Bout Changes & Things Take 2. He formed a publishing company and published the Eric Andersen Songbook with considerable success. Later releases, including More Hits From Tin Can Alley (1968) and Avalanche (1970), showed a gift for both melody and inventiveness, facets Andersen maintained on his 70s recordings. His romanticism was best heard on Blue River, an underrated 1972 collection, but tapes for the follow-up Stages were lost during a period of upheaval at Columbia Records. Andersen’s career lost its momentum, and subsequent albums for Arista Records failed to revive his fortunes. Limited to recording for Scandinavian labels for several years, Anderson made a strong return to the North American scene with 1989’s Ghosts Upon The Road. He also recorded two relaxed folk albums with Rick Danko (ex-Band) and Jonas Fjeld. Andersen’s first solo album in over nine years, 1998’s Memory Of The Future, included an impressive cover version of Phil Ochs’ ‘When I’m Gone’. The follow-up You Can’t Relive The Past included four songs written during a 1986 session with Townes Van Zandt. The ambitious double Beat Avenue (2003) featured two lengthy tracks on the second CD, with the jazzy title track recalling a poetry reading Andersen attended on the day President Kennedy was assassinated. The subsequent two volume Great American Song Series featured Andersen’s readings of songs from his Greenwich Village youth, with songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, Phil Ochs, and Buffy Sainte-Marie represented.