Dan Blakeslee

After completing art school in 1995, Dan Blakeslee headed for the subway tunnels of Boston where he could be heard pounding out fledgling originals on an acoustic guitar in the early stages of developing his signature style. Many of those songs would later become realized on seven full length albums including Tatnic Tales in 2010 which was recorded in a barn in his home state of Maine, and 2014’s Owed to the Tanglin’ Wind which was named Album of the Year by Red Line Roots. Following a US tour and countless shows behind him to include supporting slots for The Lumineers, Josh Ritter, Old, 97's, The Black Lillies, and The Low Anthem, Blakeslee released The Alley Walker in 2017, another vividly raw lense into his soul.

This time, Blakeslee, who produced the album alongside Chris Chase, shines a brighter light on his songs through elaborate production and richly layered compositions that sway from smooth, twangy hooks to bluesy saloon anthems to dusty rock songs, and then into the sort of edgy folk that seems to be tightly wired up in him and serves as a foundation for his adventurous approach to the form. The Alley Walker likewise showcases Blakeslee’s ability to weave thoughtful lyrics through chord progressions that are at the same time unexpected and accessible.

The Calabash Club provide an audible framework with the sort of seamlessness that suggests three instruments can actually become one. Nick Phaneuf (bass) and Jim Rudolf (drums) are loyally synchronized, and their tasteful approach to rhythm provides a solid structure inside of which Mike Effenberger (organ, accordion) adds an emotional and timeless quality to Blakeslee’s songs.

With The Alley Walker, Blakeslee exposes a risky and more evolved take on what awarded him “Folk Artist of the Year” at the Boston Music Awards in 2014, and “Male Performer of the Year” at the New England Music Awards in 2015. Though his boots and fingertips are worn and his guitar has been strummed in hundreds of venues across the country, Dan Blakeslee still delivers his songs with the same heart of a young, lyric scribbling troubadour, who knows because he’s tried it, that he can out sing a passing train.

Dan Blakeslee is also a full time artist. His upbringing on a Maine farm in a small rural town called South Berwick in the 1970's made him appreciate hard work and his affinity with nature. When Blakeslee was 12 years old he began taking art lessons from a neighbor a few miles down the dirt road named Hal Kenyon. All through his life he would obsessively draw which lead him to attend art school in Baltimore, MD many years later at The Maryland Institute College Of Art. In 1994 after graduating with a BFA Blakeslee made the journey back to Maine to work at a lobster restaurant called Barnacle Billy's in Ogunquit, ME. His boss saw Blakeslee's passion with both art and music and urged him to quit and pursue the arts. In 1996 Blakeslee began making music and art as his full time career.