A Favorite Returns Returns To "Our Pub"

Raves Phil Shapiro (host of the radio program Bound for Glory) of this Tuesday’s guest singer/poet, "Andrew Calhoun is a powerful songsmith, a quiet and sly performer, and fine traditional singer as well... fascinating and unpredictable." 

That unpredictability owes much to forty years’ dedication as a performer (and New Haven native) in building an ever-expansive, multi-genre range, from original material, Irish and American folk songs, to Scottish ballads (listen to tracks from his 2017 release, Rhymer’s Tower: Ballads of the Anglo-Scottish Border here), as well as African-American spirituals, hymns and musical adaptations of Mary Oliver, Robert Frost and other writers.

The spark was lit for Andrew in 1967, when he got his first guitar at age ten and began penning his own songs two years later, making his way into the folk scene in Chicago by the 1970s and finding profound lifelong influence in the works of Leonard Cohen and Martin Carthy. Click here and here for more about this period and other career details from Andrew's previous appearances at Curley's.

On the production side, Andrew founded WaterbugRecords in 1992, an artists' cooperative folk label, now up to 125 titles—appropriately enough, a valued channel for bringing some of the brightest singer-songwriters and folk musicians to an international audience by a performer who has become a renown musical fixture abroad, in his own right.

Below is his 2016 rendition of Robert Burns’ “The Lazy Mist”:

Besides various musical releases, including 2005’s Staring at the Sun (Songs 1973-1981), Shadow Of a Wing (2004) and Living Room (2013), Andrew has collected his poetry in Twenty-Four Poems (illustrated by Lee Broede) and Hay.  He has also received the Lantern Bearer Award in 2012 for twenty-five years of service to the folk arts in the Midwest by the Folk Alliance Regional Midwest, followed by the Lifetime Achievement Award, Woodstock Folk Festival in 2014.

The piece below is Andrew's interesting meditation on the low-key confluence between conviviality and territoriality.

Innsbruck

© Andrew Calhoun

In Austria
(We were there)
Boys came in
We were there first
But it was their pub

Handsome boys
Chanted and drank shots down
And shot darts with deadly skill
And drank draughts
With a laughing girl
Who looked to be in love with one of them
The one with hair as brown and thick as hers
They left before we did
But it was their pub

Check out his music, other writing, tour dates, as well as performances with his daughter, Casey at www.andrewcalhoun.com.

"...A Poet Out Of A Man": An Evening With Andrew Calhoun At Curley's

 

As tonight’s guest writer/performer, New Haven-born folk singer Andrew Calhoun will share poetry, music, as well as selections from his new humor book, The Trilogy Trilogy (Waterbug, 2012).

Andrew’s formative roots with poetry go back to age seven, when he received a nickel from his mother after successfully memorizing Yeats’ “Song of Wandering Aengus.”

Five years later in 1969 saw him writing his first songs for guitar and subsequently becoming a fixture of the folk scene in Chicago, where he still resides. A few years later, he was well-rewarded for the considerable effort it took to see Martin Carthy live at the Cambridge Folk Festival in the UK, as Andrew still counts him and Leonard Cohen as profound influences on his own career. Andrew has gone on to tour internationally, from entertaining audiences in the intimate settings of pubs and folk clubs, to participating in house concerts and large-scale festivals.

Like his mother, he has passed on his love of words, voice and music to his daughter, Casey, with whom he founded (along with Victor Sanders and Gary Cleland) Zozo, an acoustic/electric folk quartet that started performing in 2010. Below is the Calhouns’ version of 1908's "Shine On Harvest Moon" by Jack Norworth & Nora Bayes:

While he has recorded to date more than ten albums, many through the Hogeye and Flying Fish recording companies, Andrew created Waterbug Records in 1992 as an artist-run alternative folk label. The Waterbug cooperative has since amassed 100 titles in its catalog, extending the brightest singer-songwriters and folk musicians to an international audience.

Enjoy this haunting interpretation of "A Musical Instrument," Elizabeth Barrett Browning's last poem, one of the 14 songs on his latest CD, LivingRoom (Waterbug Records, 2013):

Among his literary releases are Twenty-Four Poems (Psychological Bagpipes Press, 1989) and Hay (The Paper Airplane Press, 2005). The following whimsical piece of prehistoric empathy and the sometimes- ossifying nature of modern relations comes from Andrew’s homepage:

The Brontosaurus

© Andrew Calhoun

The brontosaurus slinks through the jungle,
Afraid to be seen;
A difficult proposition, when you weigh up to 35 tons,
But perhaps that makes it easier;
No one expects to see a brontosaurus.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't seen her
Consigned to a loneliness relative to hers,
I cannot have a prehistoric lizard in my house
No matter how sweet she is
Huge and hugely dear to me

I know! She pummels with her front legs,
Dispatching her foes with a blow of her mighty tail.
Understand this:
I would rather the brontosaurus tear me limb from limb from limb
Than have brunch with you again on Sunday.
I'd as soon she knock me screaming off a mountain
As sit through tomorrow's meeting.

No bravery.
The truth is,
I believe in the kindness of the brontosaurus.
Compelled to trust her,
Not knowing if I lead or follow
In her search for water;
Perhaps I am a dinosaur also.

“A true voice of poetry and lore” according to Jon Hogan, Andrew Calhoun posts information on his music, poetry and upcoming engagements at www.andrewcalhoun.com (don’t forget to check out the CDs of other folk artists in the Waterbug collection here). Get to know more about his career and social--as well as musical--passions in this festival interview: