Eliot Bronson
Award-winning singer/songwriter Eliot Bronson’s latest self-titled album was tracked entirely analog in Nashville by acclaimed producer Dave Cobb (Sturgill Simpson, Rival Sons, Jason Isbell, Nikki Lane). It’s a vibey, ten-song album with an uncluttered production aesthetic that highlights Bronson’s songwriting and his achingly beautiful vocals.
The story goes that after Bronson completed writing this cycle of songs, he sent Dave Cobb an unsolicited email with a sample track attached. Bronson was inspired to reach out to Cobb because he was intrigued by the spacious vocal production on the Jason Isbell record which Cobb had produced. Bronson felt Cobb could help him realize the atmospheric and timeless qualities he wanted for his songs. Cobb was impressed with Bronson’s music and replied back. “I was stunned when I got a response. It was really validating for me because I sort of had him on a pedestal,” Bronson says candidly.
Eliot Bronson was recorded in one week at Cobb’s home studio and Cowboy Jack Clement Studios in Nashville. “It all felt really natural and effortless,” Bronson recalls. “Dave would be in the room playing right along with us during tracking.” The album was mixed the following week.
“It was quite a pleasure workin’ with Eliot,” says Cobb. “He’s a brilliant lyricist and poet. We did the record live all together and the album feels timeless.”
The record is something of a homecoming for Bronson, who was raised in a Pentecostal home by a family for which music was prayer and life was expressed and enjoyed in song. At an early age, Bronson discovered his parents’ folk collection of 1960s artists. These two became formative musical influences shaping Bronson’s purposeful, pensive, and poetic songwriting. Though his own music adventures took him away from these roots, he returns home to these music guideposts with Eliot Bronson.
“I spent a long time trying to get away from where I came from,” Bronson says, “but it never really felt right. This is the music I’ve always had in me. This record is me.”
Eliot Bronson is anchored by Bronson’s honeyed weary voice; blend of wry wit with emotional sincerity; expansive palette of Americana; and the album’s crisp vintage production. “River Runs Dry” boasts high-lonesome vocal harmonies, tenderly mournful lap steel, and it conjures up a cathartic sadness. “I like songs to preserve little moments without telling a specific story, so you feel something but you don’t always know exactly why,” Bronson reveals. The rollicking “Comin’ For Ya North Georgia Blues” combines almost William Boroughs-esque cutup images with unbridled and euphoric shitkicking musicality. “I was really having fun with words and ideas on that one, trying to paint picture of a relationship” he explains.
Bronson’s engaging cleverness comes to the front on the “You Wouldn’t Want Me If You Had Me.” “I didn’t think I was being funny on that one,” he says with a good-natured laugh. “I was being truthful, but I guess it works on a humorous level too. My friend said that title is the ‘dating musician’s credo.’”
Previously Eliot Bronson issued two critically acclaimed solo albums and, prior to his solo career, was a member of folk favs The Brilliant Inventions. The Atlanta Music Guide says: “Eliot Bronson is the type of songwriter who could squeeze out something meaningful about taking out the trash. He writes heartfelt songs with dark humor and backs them with his resonant voice and swampy instruments.” Georgia Music Magazine notes: “He can pull at your heartstrings like nobody’s business.” Coming up, in his native town of Baltimore, Maryland The Baltimore Sun called him a “a folk singing wunderkind.” He has won such esteemed songwriting awards as first place at Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest and Eddie Owen Presents “Songwriter Shootout,” and he’s been a finalist at Kerrville Folk Festival, Rocky Mountain Folks Fest Songwriting Contest, and New Song Contest Lincoln Center NYC.
Kollin Baer
Multi-instrumentalist, singer songwriter Kollin Baer grew up in The Woodlands, TX. Music was a part of him from an early age.
He explains, “I remember buying my first stereo off the older kid on the street and listening to the box of cassettes that my dad gave me. Stuff like Steve Miller, early Counting Crows and REM tapes. I always identified with the singers in those records, especially the ones who sang about loss or struggle. The passion was so evident, so palpable. I learned to process tough experiences through writing and music, which has stuck with me for some time.”
Kollin recorded his first solo album at the age of 21, writing and recording all of the music and instrumentation on his own. After gigging around Texas, he moved to North Carolina to attend graduate school at Duke.
Jason Harrod
Jason Harrod is a Brooklyn-based performing songwriter known for generous melodies and poetic, image-rich lyrics. Jason made his mark as one-half of seminal Boston duo Harrod and Funck before venturing out on his own. Over years of constant writing, recording, and touring, Jason has garnered a devoted fan base which has steadily grown over time.. Harrod is a top-drawer songwriter, and there is no filler or mediocrity here.
In addition to his fan following, Jason Harrod has earned the acclaim of industry leaders. In 2000, he won first place in the bluegrass category of MerleFest’s Chris Austin Songwriting competition. The following year, he took first place in the North Carolina Songwriters Co-Op contest and followed that up with a 2002 appearance on Arthur Smith’s Carolina Calling stage with Alison Krauss and Union Station. Jason was selected as a spotlight performer at the annual Healdsburg Guitar festival in 2009, sponsored by Acoustic Guitar Magazine, and in 2010 he was awarded a fellowship by the International Arts Movement in the prize’s inaugural year. In 2012, Jason received a Fulbright grant to teach songwriting to students in Thessaloniki, Greece.