Biography

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Andrew Calhoun releases a retrospective set of original songs on Different Now

“Calhoun is among the most fearless, gifted, and avante poets of our time – keeping company with Leonard Cohen, Galway Kinnell, etc. – and he shows no sign of slowing down.” –Anais Mitchell

Andrew Calhoun presents a legacy recording of twenty poetic songs written over a span of forty-five years. The themes progress from youthful concerns to the challenges of age. Different Now represents Andrew’s “collaboration with my younger self. Some of these songs were composed forty-five years ago; here I put a sterner shine on the music and recast a wayward word or two.”

Six songs are recorded for the first time, while the rest of the early-and middle-period songs are significantly reworked: “Water Street,” a secular spiritual, was the title track of Calhoun’s debut LP (Hogeye Records, 1983). “Heavy Log” is an elegy for Chicago songwriter James McCandless, written in the wake of his death in 2013; “Renaissance Land” was inspired by Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. Howard Levy contributes harmonica parts to both of these; Tracy Grammer plays violin on "No Secret Castle" and the dream-like “Grandfather's Time"; Eli Broxham adds bass to four songs; Chris Vallillo contributes electric slide guitar to "Heavy Log.” Andrew’s daughter Casey Calhoun sings on three tracks, with Sue Demel (Sons of the Never Wrong) joining her on "Look Away.” Andrew plays acoustic and classical guitars. Different Now was recorded and mixed by Jim Massoth at Crystall Recorders in Lombard, IL from September 2022 to April 2024. Tracy Grammer designed the cover, featuring art by Rosśa Crean.

Andrew Calhoun was born in New Haven, CT in 1957, and raised in Long Branch, NJ and Glen Ellyn, IL. With the exception of five years in Portland, OR, he has spent his adult life in the Chicago area. He recorded two LPs for Flying Fish in the 1980s. He founded and operated Waterbug, an artists’ cooperative folk label from 1992–2019. His discography of ten recordings of original songs includes Where Blue Meets Blue, Phoenix Envy and Tiger Tattoo. His work with old songs is represented by Rhymer’s Tower: Ballads of the Anglo-Scottish Border; Bound to Go: Folk Songs and Spirituals (Andrew Calhoun and Campground), and Grapevine, folk songs from the US and Ireland. His books include Twenty-four Poems; The Trilogy Trilogy (humor); and Warlock Rhymer: An English Translation of Robert Burns’ Scots Poems, published by Artemis Books in 2017. Skeins, a duo recording with his daughter Casey, was released in 2018. The release of Different Now coincides with Calhoun’s return to performing following several years of caregiving for family.