OLD MAN LUEDECKE: TOURING JANUARY 2011

LISTEN TO OLD MAN LUEDECKE MY HANDS ARE ON FIRE and other LOVE SONGS (2010) 1. The Rear Guard 2. My Love Comes Stepping Up The Stairs 3. Woe Betide the Doer of the Deed > Click here to listen PROOF OF LOVE (2008) 1. Proof of Love 2. Ain't Going My Way 3. In the Beginning > Click here to listen Loading player ...

One of Canada's best-loved and most intriguing roots musicians is making his second visit to Australia in January 2011 having been invited to perform at Woodford Folk Festival in December 2010. His performances there are much anticipated after touring Australia in 2009 when he was part of Tasmania's 2009 Arts feast Ten Days on the Island, in addition to successful appearances at Port Fairy Folk Festival, Brunswick Music Festival, the National Folk Festival, Fairbridge Folk Festival and all stops in between.

Chris Luedecke lives in Halifax Nova Scotia and works all over the huge country of Canada, from the Yukon to Vancouver. He is a young man with an old soul who doesn't sugar coat his fears and this lets his songs breathe with a fresh breeze of bittersweet hopefulness.

He channels a refreshing energy from folk giants like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger with maybe a hint of Loudon Wainwright III. But it's his contemporary lyrics coupled with the irresistible rhythm of the old time banjo that connect and make him so loved with his audiences.

His latest recording released in March 2010 'My Hand are on Fire and other Love Songs' is his fourth album and follows up his Juno award winning 'Proof of Love'. This is his first recording with a full studio band of mandolin, fiddle, guitars and acoustic bass in addition to his own trusty five-string banjo. For a solo artist, a full band record may have been risky. As Luedecke explains, "I love the simplicity of being a solo player. But, this time, I've enjoyed learning to use the studio as a creative place to imagine a song. This is a bunch of great musicians making it with my songs".
His own playing retains that jaunty frailing banjo style lending uplifting buoyancy to highly unique lyrical ideas, which seems to please a young market hungry for new growth from old roots. His songs are melodic gems blending old time sensibilities with an unusual vision and poetic sense. His music belies someone more than slightly ill at ease with modern life, and he performs with a gentle and endearing charisma, stories littered with his canny oblique humour. He's a sly entertainer with almost a hint of contemporary vaudeville about him and he plays a mean claw hammer banjo clearly derivative of the old time and Appalachia. He's a revelation!

Listen to Old Man Luedecke on http://www.myspace.com/oldmanluedecke

What some folk say .....

"Don't be fooled by the apparent simplicity of Chris (Old Man) Luedecke; his music is direct, immediate and unpretentious, but it's not simple. Luedecke plays claw-style banjo, the style of the mountains, and acoustic guitar. And his voice is warm and unadorned. Yet listen closely to his lyrics and you catch a hip, contemporary sensibility lurking behind the old-timey musical facade ..... The late John Hartford is surely smiling from his heavenly perch ...... "
The Record Review: My Hands on fire and other Love Songs

Well, he dresses like an old man, and his voice is leaden with world-weariness beyond his years, but Juno-award winning Canadian banjo player and songwriter Old Man (Chris) Luedecke has springtime in his fingertips. Luedecke is musically a traditionalist more than a revisionist, and his Americana is one part bluegrass sprightliness and one part heart-wrenching Appalachian lament ...... ITunes and Mail

Part Dock Boggs, part Walt Whitman and part aphorism-peddler is Old Man Luedecke, a hillside Nova Scotia songster who gently plays a banjo, turns phrases awfully well, falls down and picks himself up again. Because he has a gift for finding good-natured melodies and the flipsides to "thoughts so dire," he'll be fine when things Ain't Goin My Way, a hoedown tune from his third album, Proof of Love. And he'll be okay - we'll be okay - as long as a singalong Big Group Breakfast can be a version of Nirvana, and, as he assures on the plucky, resolute Just Like a River, our fears and darkness can be left behind when we "sing these songs." Old Man Luedecke, sing on - we'll follow.... The Globe & Mail

Hinterland- Black Hen Music- 2006

Old Man Luedecke's music invokes the spirit of the folk revival of the late fifties and early sixties with a modern edge featuring traditional style banjo music complimented by stellar contemporary songwriting………..a fully developed personal vision, musical depth and awareness of folk idioms bent to modern purpose….CD Baby

Old Man Luedecke has been busy since the release of his last album. He has been a hit at many major North American folk festivals and has supported acts such as Feist, The Be Good Tanyas, Corb Lund, and Joel Plaskett at both club shows and soft seater venues. He has appeared on festival stages with the likes of Kris Kristofferson, David Francey, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Jill Barber and Buck 65. It was in fact, Luedecke's driving banjo riff on Buck's 65's "Indestructible Sam" that won the CBC Radio 3 Bucky Award for "Best Hook" for his fellow east coast songwriter. Old Man Luedecke will continue to tour relentlessly and watch for him as he brings his "Proof of Love"

Old Man Luedecke is touring exclusively with Across The Borders. Touring Agency

BOOKINGS AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
John McAuslan
Across The Borders Touring Agency
Phone: (03) 9387 3376 Fax: (03) 9380 8234
Email: johnbmf@vicnet.net.au
www.acrosstheborders.com.au |
http://www.myspace.com/oldmanluedecke | www.oldmanluedecke.ca