Album Notes

"Traditional ballads and shamelessly awful puns." - Chicago Tribune


"Among the Midwest's most popular and enduring folk performers." - Boston Globe

"Art is simply the singer of American folk songs who most brings out their meaning. Not only does he have the best repertoire of Midwest songs, but he can tell a tale like an old lumberjack." - 10 Pound Fiddle

"A lot of people locked themselves into the nightclub scene and some of them couldn't handle it when that era of folk and protest ended. But I branched out, and I found that there weren't just a few elitist people who were worth singing to." - Art Thieme

"King of 9-string guitar," Midwestern folksinger, punster and raconteur Art Thieme also plays the musical saw and old-time banjo. Currently unable to perform due to multiple sclerosis, Thieme has carefully assembled favorite songs, stories and puns from three decades of concert recordings. Highlights of The Older I Get, The Better I Was include "The Cowboy's Barbara Allen;" "Jerry, Go And Oil That Car;" a 19th century song learned from the singing of "Haywire Mac" McClintock; the classic Scots ballad, "The Great Silkie Of Sule Skerrie;" "Betty and Dupree Blues;" "A Lumber Camp Tale;" Jimmy Driftwood's "Tennessee Stud;" 22 tracks and nearly 74 minutes of Art's music, humor and wisdom.

Art Thieme performed at Chicago's No Exit coffeehouse for 37 years, in Chicago area schools for several years as part of the Urban Gateways program, and spent a decade entertaining passengers on the Twilight and Julia Belle Swain riverboats on the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. He is popular throughout the Midwest, particularly in Chicago. His career has been sidelined by multiple schlerosis.


------------------
LISTEN