Biography

FORTUNE STREET - Release 10/23/07

Woody Guthrie grew up in 21st-century Boston, he'd sound a lot like Moock. --Scott Alarik, Boston Globe Correspondent

"Fortune Street - what a wonderful album" -- Bob Harris, BBC Radio 2

Love your sound! - Henry Hallett, host of 'Simple Folk' on KXCI


Fortune Street rose to #2 on the Euro Americana Chart, June, 2007. Alastair is currrently headed back to the UK for a Festival appearance. He traversed Europe last fall with stops in France, the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK. Releasing now in the USA where Alastair was nominated for Singer/Songwriter of the Year in the prestigious national 2007 Boston Music Awards.

This is the Cambridge, MA, touring singer-songwriter’s 5th album, 2nd on Corazong. Alastair sings about the American experience, songs touched with history, in a commanding voice. Tonally, Fortune Street ranges from earthy electric blues and 70s era soul to Appalachian ballad and lush folk-rock. Alastair’s latest is produced by Dave Goodrich, producer of Chris Smithers’ Train Home and Peter Mulvey’s Knuckleball Suite.

In 2005, Alastair signed with international roots label CoraZong Records, which released Let it Go, Moock's fourth CD, which included "Unwanted Guest". The album charted for fourteen consecutive weeks in the Roots Music Report Folk Chart's Top 10 and cracked the Americana Music Chart's Top 40 in February, 2006 The following quotes are from that successful run, and Fortune Street is hitting the players now of the Music Press.

DIRTY LINEN:
“... Moock is an anachronism in the best sense. He's a young man with the wizened sound of someone much older, often sounding a lot like Steve Forbert in both voice and arrangements, and he mixes his rootsy, confident originals with covers of old songs... Moock knows both his history and how to tell a good story.”

PERFORMING SONGWRITER:
“Alastair Moock's all-American folk music plays out if he were the second coming of Tom Waits.”

ACOUSTIC GUITAR:
“Alastair Moock has been compared to John Prine, Steve Forbert, Tom Waits and other rough voices in American roots music. The comparisons miss the fact that his folksy songs about wandering friends, lost loves, and travel have the freshness of a newly opened window.”

IOWA PRESS CITIZEN:
Moock is proudly, unabashedly a folk singer in the grand tradition of Woody, Jimmie, etc. – something of a rarity in these days of hyphenated descriptors and hipster marketing angles. Once again for Moock, it’s [Fortune Street] all killer, no filler.

ABOUT ALASTAIR
There was a time in America when folk music was relevant, edgy, even dangerous — a tool of personal and political expression, at once raw and beautiful. That spirit lives on in the music of Alastair Moock.
You're most likely to find him alone on a stage, sitting in a low chair, stomping a booted foot, picking his beaten guitar, and growling out some of the most beautifully crafted songs you're ever likely to hear. Those songs have won Moock top honors at many of the country's most prestigious contests, including those at the Falcon Ridge, Sisters, and Great Waters folk festivals. The Boston Globe calls him “one of the town's best and most adventurous songwriters” and The Washington Post says “every song is a gem.” His songs have the smooth, clean lines of American classics — a timelessness reinforced by his whiskeyed voice and muscular fingerpicking. This is not museum music. Moock frequently tackles contemporary subject matters, examining the changing world around him. The songs are observant, heart-wrenching, funny, and defiant — often all at once.
Alastair engages audiences with a style of humor and insight that Americana Radio chart-topper Slaid Cleaves describes as “masterful.” Not content to simply serve up a laundry list of tunes, he mixes his own songs with spoken word pieces, stories from the road, and even a bit of American history, providing context for the traditional blues and ballads he includes in every show. His ability to connect with audiences has earned Moock the opportunity to open for an impressive roster of national acts over the years, including Arlo Guthrie, Taj Mahal, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Greg Brown, Kasey Chambers, Jay Farrar, Patty Larkin, and Marshall Crenshaw.
Moock started performing in 1995, moving from his home outside New York City to the folk haven of Boston, Massachusetts.