Oliver Buck July 11, 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 voice is unusual, unusually expressive, and instantly recognizable; a voice that the Cleveland Free Times calls "as sweet and pure as Lyle Lovett's." His music is an unusual concoction of vintage-tinted Americana, alt-country, and bluegrass with a strong undercurrent of blues evident in his rhythmic flatpicking style. Buck's influences span the far reaches of old troubadour country, folk, blues, and rock and roll, and include Hank Williams, The Band, Steve Earle, Johnny Cash, John Hiatt, Jimmie Rodgers, Townes Van Zandt, Del McCoury, Merle Haggard, The Grateful Dead, and Jason White & The Janglers.

The latest album, Prodigal Son (Cuyahoga Records, 2008), marks a sea change in sound and approach for Buck. It is the first release consisting mostly of his own songs; his first with a full backing band; 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 solo album, Rust Belt Blues, which garnered considerable acclaim from reviewers in the U.S. and Europe. Buck will be a showcase artist in this year's North By Northeast (NXNE) Conference and Festival in Toronto, and was named a finalist in the 2007 Telluride Blues Festival Acoustic Blues Competition.

Before going solo, Buck played in a number of bands in a sideman career that began in 1992. He most notably played electric guitar in the short-lived but widely-touted alt-country band, Percival, who released an album in 2006 produced by Ryan Adams guitarist and Strokes guru, JP Bowersock.

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