The Folk Project presents award winning singer-songwriter
Craig Bickhardt
WHEN: Friday, August 21 at 8:00 pm
WHERE: The Minstrel at the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship, 21 Normandy Heights Rd, Morristown.
ADMISSION: $9.00 per person at the door. Children 12 and under are free
Craig Bickhardt, whose songs have been recorded by over 150 artists, including Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, B. B. King, Alison Krauss, Tricia Yearwood, Willie Nelson and Kathy Mattea, will perform at The Minstrel. Opening act will be local artist Brandon Broderick.
The performance is part of The Minstrel Acoustic Concert Series, sponsored by the Folk Project each Friday evening at the Fellowship. For samples of both Craig and Brandon's music, please visit the Folk Project website.
From the boisterous club scene of Philadelphia to the country-rock milieu of Los Angeles to the picking parlors of Nashville, Craig Bickhardt has immersed himself in the sights and sounds of American music. Along the way, he has accumulated four number one songs, four R.I.A.A. Platinum Album awards, and nine ASCAP awards. In 2006, after 26 years in Nashville, he returned to his Philadelphia roots and the concert stage. Dreams, heartaches and hard-earned lessons have fed his creativity. There is no other way he could have written the eloquent, often bittersweet songs that have become his trademark.
“I start a lot of songs because I feel conflicted,” he explains. “I may begin from a point of darkness, but I usually end up writing towards the light because, for me, hope is the thing worth singing about. The characters in the stories I sing aren't heroic; they're very ordinary. But they're reaching for something beyond themselves, and I find nobility in that.” Also crucial to Craig's art is his virtuosic guitar work, interweaving folk, blues, country and ragtime influences into a unique whole: “The guitar isn't just an accompanying instrument for me—sometimes it's the front man and my voice is the accompanist.”
A Craig Bickhardt live set is a mix of absurd anecdotes and personal confessions, accompanying a well-stocked bag of original tunes and the occasional choice cover. His decades in music have given his performances the depth of experience – his love songs seem sweeter and more poignant, his story-song narratives more true-to-life than they could have in the past. “I think people come to my shows to be reminded that there's something profound in the small stuff we experience every day,” he says. “My goal is to get an audience to look deeper at the things we all take for granted.”
The Folk Project is a non-profit 501(c)(3) Corporation whose mission is to present high caliber folk music performances and instructional workshops for the public and members; to encourage development of musicianship and performance skills in the northern New Jersey area; and to provide interesting social and learning activities relating to traditional and participatory folk music and dance.
Funding has been made possible in part by funds from Morris Arts through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Folk Project: www.folkproject.org or 973-335-9489
Craig Bickhardt: www.craigbickhardt.com
