Baby Gramps plays a mixture of styles and eras including traditional blues, children's and labor songs, and his own compositions. His busy and unusual guitar style includes flat and finger picking, and "chording" with the back of his hand and his elbow. His singing styles include throat singing. His voice is a cross between Popeye the Sailor and a Didgeridoo and the plinkity plink of his VERY worn National steel guitar, sounds like a wind up jack in the box.
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Baby Gramps plays a mixture of styles and eras including traditional blues, children's and labor songs, and his own compositions. His busy and unusual guitar style includes flat and finger picking, and "chording" with the back of his hand and his elbow. His singing styles include throat singing. His voice is a cross between Popeye the Sailor and a Didgeridoo and the plinkity plink of his VERY worn National steel guitar, sounds like a wind up jack in the box. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Gramps “Baby Gramps’s performances on “Rogue’s Gallery” (Anti), a two-disc set of sea chanteys produced by Hal Willner, are among the album’s best, and that’s saying a lot: among the other contributors are Sting, Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams, Bono, Bryan Ferry, Nick Cave, Van Dyke Parks and Bill Frisell.” - Ben Ratlif, The New York Times According to an article in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, Baby Gramps is acknowledged as one of the top 50 most influential musicians in the last 100 years along with Ray Charles, Jelly Roll Morton, Ernestine Anderson, John Cage, Bill Frisell, Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones, The Wailers, The Ventures, Sound Garden, and Pearl Jam. He is credited with making Seattle audiences aware of old blues and novelty songs that the rest of the world has mostly forgotten. Baby Gramps toured England and Ireland this past summer (2008) as part of the Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys CD Concert Tour with Tim Robbins (actor), Martha and Rufus Wainright, Jenny Muldaur (Maria and Geoff's daughter), Lou Reed, The Watersons, Martin Carthy and Eliza, Suzanne Vega, Ralph Steadman, and many other internationally know performers. The Rogues Gallery CD, produced by Johnny Depp and Hal Wilner in connection with The Pirates of the Caribbean film, landed Baby Gramps on the David Letterman Show. Baby Gramps is a high energy humorously entertaining performer with an endless repertoire. He plays an acoustic antique National Steel guitar and sings his own unique arrangements of rags, jazz, & blues songs from the 20's & 30's and many originals with wordplay, humor, and throat singing. He appeals to a wide range of audiences from folk to jamband to punk to old timey traditional and to kids of all ages. Venues he performs at vary from intimate coffeehouses and pubs, to large concert halls, theaters, and festivals.
