Andrew Calhoun

"Andrew Calhoun is a powerful songsmith, a quiet and sly performer, and fine traditional singer as well... fascinating and unpredictable."
-Phil Shapiro, Bound for Glory

Andrew Calhoun's music is innovative and rooted in tradition. In forty years as a performer he has evolved an increasingly varied repertoire including original songs, Irish and American folk songs, Scottish ballads, African-American spirituals, hymns, historical background, comic songs and poems and songs by writers such as Dave Carter, Mary Oliver and Robert Frost.

At age seven, Andrew memorized W. B. Yeats' "Song of Wandering Aengus," thus earning a nickel from his mother. He got his first guitar in 1967 at the age of ten, and began writing songs at twelve. By the late seventies, he was performing in the Chicago folk scene. Six months of janitorial work at the DAVEA Center in Addison, IL, funded a trip to Europe in 1977 leading him to hear Martin Carthy at the Cambridge Folk Festival in England, and Carthy along with Leonard Cohen have remained guiding musical inspirations. He has since toured internationally, performing at folk clubs and festivals, pubs and house concerts. In 1992, Calhoun founded Waterbug Records, an artists' cooperative folk label which has grown to 115 titles, bringing some of the brightest singer-songwriters and folk musicians to an international audience. His own recordings have been released on Hogeye, Flying Fish and Waterbug Records. Recent projects include a comedy book, The Trilogy Trilogy, and his twelfth recording, Living Room, a collection of original songs. Recently he has worked with Andrew Calhoun and Campground; the band Zozo; and in a duo and trio with daughter Casey Calhoun. In October 2012, Andrew was given the Lantern Bearer Award for twenty-five years of service to the folk arts in the Midwest by the Folk Alliance Regional Midwest.