He moonlights as a cartoonist for, most notably, The New Yorker, but the songs written by "hard-scrabble singer-songwriter" (TIME OUT NEW YORK) and "erudite redneck" (BOSTON GLOBE) Andy Friedman aren't written for laughs. "Singer-songwriter Andy Friedman has a mastery of wordy self-loathing that many white dudes with guitars would kill for," says NASHVILLE SCENE. The title track to his debut studio album, Taken Man (City Salvage/Rounder Europe), found itself at #30 on the New York Post's "207 Best Songs To Download in 2007" list. "Devestatingly honest. Brilliantly written," declared Mary Huhn. "Every married man alive will relate."
Taken Man explores issues of art, wild dreams, and wanderlust. The album includes special guest appearances by Paul Curreri (who produced the record), Devon Sproule, Old Crow Medicine Show's Ketch Secor, Jeffrey Foucault, Melissa Ferrick, and Kris Delmhorst, among others. The artist and his rockabilly-folk band Andy Friedman & The Other Failures represent "one of the most respected bands on the Brooklyn scene," (CLEVELAND FREE TIMES) bringing "a veritable hoe down of cynical lyrics and tongue in cheek humour." (AMERICANA UK)
Friedman’s unique, rough around the edges approach to the classic country, country blues, and rockabilly sounds he reveres, coupled with insightful, urban, and artful lyrics have led music writers around the country to describe Friedman as “fractured folk” (LOS ANGELES TIMES), “a Hillbilly Leonard Cohen” (ATHENS NEWS) and “The King Of Art Country” (MINNEAPOLIS CITY PAGES).
"[Friedman’s music] is not country in the Willie Nelson/Johnny Cash vein, but it's no less country music,” says OXFORD TOWN. “Taken Man could propel Friedman . . . into the annals of American music."
THE BACK STORY:
Andy Friedman fell into music relatively recently. When he first took to the stage and to the road in March of 2002, it was as a self-described Americana Slideshow Poet who coupled original spoken-lyrics with projections of his paintings, drawings, and photographs onstage. “Andy hadn’t picked up the guitar or made a record yet then,” recalls singer-songwriter Jeffrey Foucault (Ghost Repeater, Signature Sounds), who toured with Friedman during these years. “He would get up with a beer or a whiskey in his hand, and one of maybe forty-three different foam and mesh style baseball caps. . . and he’d cue up a slide of a pencil drawing of lowering skies, [calling it] his version of the Mississippi John Hurt song Payday. . .Before he wrote songs, these were his songs. I always loved his show.”
Friedman longed to be embraced by the thriving folk music communities around the country, and called his pictures “songs that you look at.” He considered his spoken poems to be the lyrics to his visual music.” Alternative newsweeklies across the USA praised Friedman for his pioneering spirit and wit, calling him “the next big thing” (EUGENE WEEKLY), “an iconoclast. . .the Johnny Cash of painting,” (CONNECT SAVANNAH) and “the coolest live show to come around in a long time.” (GOOD TIMES). Friedman befriended and shared stages with a great many of his folk and blues heroes along the way—including John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers, “Spider” John Koerner, the late Dave Ray, Tony Glover, and the late John Herald of the Greenbriar Boys.
Although he never played an instrument or sang in his life, during the winter of 2004 Friedman’s more conventional folk-musical interests came to a head. Using Hank Williams’ Luke The Drifter records as a model, the artist began to explore the ways he could incorporate music (that you listen to) into his slideshows. Initially finding his musicians on street-corners and pubs from city to city while on tour, Friedman began adding folk-country instrumental backdrops to his spoken show. Shortly after releasing his first CD, Live at The Bowery Poetry Club—recorded live in July 2005 and released the following winter—Friedman began singing and playing guitar for the first time, dropped the slideshow, and set to work on his first studio album, Taken Man.
Taken Man presents the artist as bona-fide country songwriter, delivering edgy, engaging lyrics with a rough-around-the-edges voice and style that seems like it’s been singing and playing forever. Delivering a collection of songs that reflect the artist’s “deeply American identity,” (CVILLE WEEKLY), and backed onstage by one of the most energetic bands on the growing “Brooklyn Country” scene, Andy Friedman has evolved into the musician and songwriter that inspired him to hit the road in the first place.
