Album Notes

Andrew Calhoun's well-honed songwriting talents take an audience from laughter to tears and many places in between.. In concert he weaves a tapestry of original music written over thirty years, Scottish ballads he has translated from dialect, spoken word, and songs by other writers. Now living in Chicago, he recently released his tenth album, "Staring at the Sun."
At age 7, Andrew memorized W. B. Yeats' "Song of Wandering Aengus," thus earning a nickel from his mother. He got his first guitar in 1967 at the age of 10 and began performing in the Chicago folk scene in the late seventies. He has since toured internationally, performing at folk clubs and festivals, pubs and house concerts. He gives workshops in creative songwriting, Scottish folk ballads, and music theory for guitarists. In 1992, Calhoun is founder and artistic director of Waterbug Records, an artists' cooperative folk label which has grown to over 50 titles, bringing some of the brightest singer-songwriters and folk musicians to an international audience. His recordings have been released on Hogeye, Flying Fish and Waterbug. Calhoun's music is a great companion for anyone who has ventured off the well-paved road to forge their own path in life.

Press on HOPE:

"Calhoun is a master at story songs, finely crafted works that swiftly and economically capture a moment or express an emotion. Like the best novelists, he is able to assume different personas and see the world through other people's eyes." -June Sawyers, Chicago Tribune

"...he goes an awfully long way toward overturning the prevalent image of folksingers trying to live in a past that never was." -Renaldo Migaldi, Chicago Reader

"...unbelievably powerful imagery." -Merlin David, Performing Songwriter



"The greatest songwriter of his generation, mentionable in the same breath with Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Martin Carthy." - John McLaughlin, WESS


HOPE was released in 1993. Chicago Irish box great John Williams plays concertina on "Getaway" and "Glad Old Man"; Kat Eggleston sings harmony on "Getaway," "Long Legged Lover" and plays guitar on the duet "If". "Balls," sung here with a 5-voice choir called "The Testostertones", was written as an anthem for the then-burgeoning men's movement. "Survivor" deals with recovering from a tortured childhood, and "Veteran" with the Vietnam war's price on a young American's life.

from "The Swimmer":

"Good shoes and warm clothes are a comfort to wear
When the winter winds shriek in an effort to scare
Little children from sleep to the devil know where
Keep walking, keep moving, don't leave yourself there.

...it's love and it's warfare from rattle to tomb
And it's both of them calling me back to this room
Where the curve of your body and the look in your eye
Make me feel worse and better about having to die"