Oliver Buck June 13, 2008

Oliver Buck's songs reflect the universal themes of love, longing, and loss and channel hope and heartache in equal measure. Having moved around the country since boyhood, and having lived in places as far apart as Missoula, Montana and New York City, Providence and Lawrence, Kansas, Buck also sings about American roads--those of metal, macadam, and metaphor. Buck writes about people he's met (the inspiring and the unsavory), and also about his own personal struggles, tough choices, and ambitions as someone who walked away from a promising career in academia for a life in music.

Buck's musical style is an unusual concoction of vintage-tinted indie Americana, alt-country, folk, and blues punctuated with rhythmic fingerstyle acoustic guitar. His influences span the far reaches of old troubadour country, folk, blues, and rock and roll, and include The Band, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, Dave Van Ronk, Johnny Cash, Big Bill Broonzy, John Hiatt, Jimmie Rodgers, Townes Van Zandt, Chris Whitley, Merle Haggard, The Grateful Dead, and Jason White & The Janglers.

His latest album, Prodigal Son (Cuyahoga Records, 2008), marks a sea change in sound and approach. It is Buck's first solo album consisting mostly of original songs; his first with a full backing band, The New Madrids; and his first recorded and mixed entirely on analog reel-to-reel tape equipment with no computers or digital effects. Recorded not long after Buck returned home to Cleveland, Ohio after 15 years away, Prodigal Son is both a homecoming record and a reckoning of the mixed feelings that inevitably come from places left behind.

Prodigal Son follows 2007's Rust Belt Blues which garnered considerable acclaim from reviewers in the U.S. and Europe. Buck was named a finalist in the 2007 Telluride Blues Festival Acoustic Blues Competition. Before going solo in 2007, Buck played guitar in several bands including the alt-country band, Percival, who made a record in 2006 in New York with producer JP Bowersock (Ryan Adams, The Strokes).

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