Thursday, July 16, 2015

Kevin Gordon bio

 "Dude's a juke-joint professor emeritus"--Rolling Stone

In September 2015 Kevin Gordon releases Long Gone Time, the long-awaited follow-up to
2012’s critically acclaimed Gloryland. Produced by Joe V. McMahan, the new record further
explores an awkward post-Civil Rights Act American south, with narratives and meditations
based on Gordon’s own Louisiana upbringing. Recorded live, half of the tracks are recorded
with only acoustic instruments(featuring Lex Price and Bo Ramsey). The “electric” tracks,
again recorded live with minimal overdubs, feature Gordon with his stalwart band of 20 years:
McMahan, Ron Eoff, and Paul Griffith.

Over the course of twenty-five years of writing, recording and touring, Gordon has built an
impressively consistent catalog of songs, a critically-acclaimed stack of albums, and a
reputation for dynamic live performances. His 2012 release, Gloryland, received significant
critical praise and media attention: a front-page Arts section feature in The New York Times, an
appearance on NPR’s “Here and Now”, and great reviews in Rolling Stone, USA Today, and
others. Author Peter Guralnick said this about Gloryland:

"There's nothing else around today quite like Kevin Gordon’s music. I'm a huge Kevin Gordon
fan. Think of John Lee Hooker tied to the hard, imagistic poetry of William Carlos Williams, and
you get a little bit of an idea. . . you just have to listen. And listen again. For the pure emotional
pleasure of it. For the unmistakable, hard-driving passion of words and music, rocking together
in rhythm."

From The New York Times: "'Gloryland' [is] an often harrowing tour of the back-roads South
with scenes of burning churches, a serio-comic brawl after a ZZ Top concert in Shreveport, La.,
and — most memorably — the time the Klan showed up when his seventh-grade marching
band performed about 90 miles from there in Colfax."

Gordon's songs have been recorded by Keith Richards, Irma Thomas, Levon Helm, Hard
Working Americans, and others. His duet with Lucinda Williams, “Down to the Well”, was
featured on the Oxford American Southern Music Sampler.

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