Biography

Singer and teacher, F. Christopher Reynolds, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1961. He grew up surrounded by music. His father and uncle, Rip and George Reynolds, were the Reynolds Brothers, who began in Belleville, Illinois and St. Louis, and later moved to Chicago. Reynolds says of his family that part of being a man was being able to play music. He started his first band, Hot Rox, in Norwalk, Ohio, in 1976 along with friends, Randy Bong Long, Mike Green Greenwald, and Greg Greg Haney. In 1979, the band released the cassette, Smashed Again, which contained 12 original songs penned by Reynolds. From 1979 to 1983, he continued to write, record and perform, both at Bowling Green State University and in Tours, France. The college days were a mix of solo work, work with Eclipse, a band featuring Chris Cummings, DJ Nabinger and Troy Elliot. Reynolds played with the acoustic duo, Those Guys, with John Husbands. Reynolds and Cummings recorded a 12 song cassette called, Some Songs 1979-1982, again of songs written by Reynolds.

Those Guys enjoyed great popularity from 1985 until they broke up in 1992. Highlights included wild nights of sing-alongs and improv at Around the Corner in Lakewood, Ohio, appearances on television and opening for 60s folk legend, Donovan Leitch at Peabodys Down Under. Those Guys released a cassette entitled, A Suburban Nigredo, in 1991 and were in the studio recording a second release, Ex Una Plura: Out of One Come Many, when Reynolds and Husbands parted ways.

The end of Those Guys gave way to a steady output of recordings and performances. Reynolds notes that he realized at the end of Those Guys that he needed to work with hired guns, the best musicians he could find. They included, Chris Cummings, Bill and Paul Kraker, Barbara Sammuels, Colin Dussault, Michael Doc Dreyfuss, Brian Davison, Denis Sichner, Dave Parsons, Dan Polk, Bill and Carlos Jones. It was also at that time that Reynolds met Larry Koval, president of Littlefish Records www.littlefishrecords.com, with whom he still distributes his material. Thus began a series of Cds: Released from the Past, in 1997. Unio Mentalis: The Mind of the Land, in 1999, Life Goes On, in 2000, Creation: The Pyramids and the Sun, in 2001, Sacred Places, Places Sacred, with award-winning Ashland poet, Jane Piirto, also in 2001, finally, the live boot-leg, Urfeo in the Urgound, in 2001.

In response to 9/11/2001, Reynolds founded Urrealism, a deepening of Surrealism. Urrealism is the waging of creativity and cooperation during a time of global destructiveness and isolation. Reynolds notes that the culture is going though a shift, much like the Copernican shift at the beginning of the Modern Era. His last 3 Cds, The New Heavens and the New Earth: The Urground Railroad, in 2002, The Age of Magnification: Lamp of the Archer, in 2004, and The Urground Railroad: Recollector, in 2006, are all folk music woven with cosmology, depth psychology and spirituality. When asked about his music, Reynolds states, At the heart of it, its music that makes you feel good when you listen to it.

In addition to his music, Reynolds lectures and puts on workshops in the United States and Canada on Creativity and Spirituality. He has published poems and papers in scholarly journals, most notably, the essays, Depth Psychology and Giftedness: Bringing Soul to the Field of Talented Education, in the Roeper Review and A Gathering of Orphans: Struggling for Liberation and Awakening Within the Goal, in Holistic Learning and Spirituality in Education, published by SUNY.

Christopher resides in Berea, Ohio, with his wife, Paula, son, Isaac, daughter, Ana and dog, Ruby. He teachers French at Berea High School, creativity to teaches of the talented at Ashland University, and songwriting to gifted teens at the Ashland Summer Institute. He is also a board member at Angel House www.angelhousestrongsville.com, a school for creativity and spirituality in Strongsville.