Eric Andersen (born February 14, 1943, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American singer-songwriter.
Eric Andersen has maintained a career as a folk-based singer/songwriter since the 1960s. In contrast to such peers as Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs, Andersen’s writing has had a romantic/philosophical/poetic bent for the most part, rather than a socially conscious one, though one of his best-known songs, “Thirsty Boots,” has as its background the Freedom Rides of the early ’60s. (The song has been recorded by Judy Collins and others.) (allmusic.com/William Ruhlmann)
Eric Andersen on “The Johnny Cash Show” Jan. 6, 1971, singing Born Again:
After falling into obscurity for a number of years, he reemerged in 1988 with a new album, Ghosts Upon the Road. Though the album only did modestly well, it was widely praised and placed on a number of critics’ year-end “best of” lists.
At this time in his career, Andersen was living in Oslo, Norway, and, in the early 1990s, Andersen formed the trio Danko/Fjeld/Andersen together with Rick Danko (The Band) and the Norwegian singer-songwriter, Jonas Fjeld. The trio recorded three albums and performed together for nine years. In 1998, Andersen released his first solo album in a decade, Memory of the Future. Praised as “dreamy and introspective”, the album was followed two years later by You Can’t Relive The Past, which included original blues numbers as well as a selection of songs co-written with Townes Van Zandt. A double album Beat Avenue followed in 2003.
Thirsty Boots:
Andersen’s next albums, The Street Was Always There in 2004 and Waves in 2005, were both produced by multi-instrumentalist Robert Aaron. In addition to covers of his own songs, the albums featured new versions of classics by his sixties contemporaries and friends, including David Blue, Bob Dylan, Richard Fariña, Tim Hardin, Peter La Farge, Fred Neil, Phil Ochs, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Paul Siebel, Patrick Sky, Tom Paxton, John Sebastian, Happy Traum, Lou Reed, and Tom Rush. His next album Blue Rain, released in 2007, was his first live album. It was recorded in Norway and contains a blend of blues, jazz and folk.
In 2009, Andersen contributed an essay titled The Danger Zone to the Naked Lunch @ 50: Anniversary Essays, a book volume edited by Oliver Harris and Ian MacFadyen devoted to William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, considered one of the landmark publications in the history of American literature.
In 2011 Andersen released his second live album The Cologne Concert featuring Michele Gazich on violin and Eric’s wife Inge Andersen on backing vocals.
In 2012 the filmmaker Paul Lamont (Toward Castle Films) started the production of The Eric Andersen Story, a documentary film, which is expected to be ready for global distribution in 2014.
Wonderful singer/songwriter!
– Hallgeir
Sources: Allmusic and Wikipedia