MP3 Ken Waldman - Some Favorites
Some of the best tracks from Ken Waldman''s first seven CDs--fiddle, banjo, poetry, Alaska, and more.
17 MP3 Songs in this album (56:19) !
Related styles: FOLK: String Band, FOLK: Traditional Folk
People who are interested in John Hartford should consider this download.
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Ken Waldman has drawn on his 23 years in Alaska to produce poems, stories and fiddle tunes that combine into a performance uniquely his own.
A former college professor, Waldman has had published six full-length poetry collections, a memoir, and has released seven CDs that combine old-time Appalachian-style string-band music with original poetry. Since 1994 he’s worked full-time as Alaska’s Fiddling Poet, performing at some of the nation’s leading universities, festivals, arts centers, and clubs. Over 400 of his poems and stories have appeared in such journals as Beloit Poetry Journal, Chariton Review, Quarterly West, and Yankee.
His first full-length collection, Nome Poems, was published in April 2000 by West End Press of Albuquerque and is now in its third printing. It chronicles the two years Waldman spent teaching writing over telephone at the Nome campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Also included is a section about the 1996 plane crash that led locals to refer to him as “a walking dead man.” In March 2002, West End Press published a second collection, To Live on this Earth, which contains more Alaska poems, including a number about old-time music and dance. Within a year, this too went into a second printing.
In October 2005, Wings Press of San Antonio published The Secret Visitor’s Guide, which includes more Alaska poems, more music poems, and a sequence of poems that begin with September 11, 2001, and continues to October 11, 2001, November 11, 2001, all the way to September 11, 2002, and beyond. In November 2005, Pavement Saw Press of Columbus, Ohio published And Shadow Remained, a hard-hitting collection that takes readers from Waldman''s family of origin in Philadelphia, to North Carolina and Alaska, and then back. In June 2006, Steel Toe Books of Bowling Green, Kentucky, published Conditions and Cures, Waldman’s fifth collection. Amidst poems of relationship, disease, and healing, there’s a stunning sequence of comedy sonnets. Later that summer, Ridgeway Press, outside Detroit, published Waldman’s sonnet sequence, As the World Burns. In summer 2008, a new publisher from Northern California, Catalyst Book Press, is bringing out Are You Famous?, Waldman’s memoir of his fiddling poet life and lifestyle. The subtitle of that book: Touring America with Alaska’s Fiddling Poet.
In May 2000, he released his first CD, A Week in Eek, a collaboration with Vancouver banjo and flute player Andrea Cooper. The CD features poems read over old-time fiddle music, a mix of traditional Appalachian tunes and originals Waldman has composed in the style. It received strong reviews in magazines such as Dirty Linen, Sing Out! and Old-Time Herald. His second CD, Burnt Down House, received another round of strong reviews and widespread national airplay. In January 2003, Waldman released a third CD, Music Party, that some listeners called the best of the bunch.
In October 2005, Waldman released his first children’s CD, Fiddling Poets on Parade. Co-produced and engineered by Chicago multi-instrumentalist, Jordan Wankoff, who plays guitar, banjo, and fiddle on the disk, this one features much of what Waldman might do at one of his exciting kids’ concerts or school programs. In November 2005, Waldman released a double CD, All Originals, All Traditionals. More than two hours long, it’s an epic. One CD contains 27 Waldman original tunes played by a band that includes Jordan Wankoff from Chicago, Jerry Hagins from Austin, and two Louisiana musicians, Hogie Siebert and Mitch Reed. The other CD contains 28 traditional tunes, and lots of Alaska-set poems. In autumn 2006, collaborating with Wankoff once more, Waldman released As the World Burns, a CD to go along with the book of that title. In summer 2008, Waldman is releasing a new double-CD. Accompanied on one disk by Jordan Wankoff, and on the other by Pittsburgh multi-instrumentalist, Mark Tamsula, this project showcases more than fifty of Waldman’s new original tunes. There’s only a handful of poems.
Though he still performs solo on occasion, Waldman teams with other musicians for a bigger sound when he headlines such venues as Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse in Berkeley, Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, The Ark in Ann Arbor, The Millennium Stage at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., or else for concert series shows.
He is also a popular visiting artist in classrooms. Employing both his fiddle and a repertoire of proven writing exercises, he has led workshops in over 160 schools in 30 states nationwide, and has been a guest writer at over 80 colleges and universities, including SUNY Brockport, Suffolk University, University of Tennessee, University of Alabama Birmingham, Knox College, University of Nebraska Omaha, Idaho State University, and San Diego State University.