Michael Jerling - Biography

Photo by Paula Rosenberg

Born and raised in Illinois, songwriter Michael Jerling became involved with music while helping to run the campus coffeehouse at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire. Settling in upstate Saratoga Springs, New York, Michael has been a noted artist on the club, college and festival circuits of North America since 1975. His live shows are buoyed by his sharp sense of humor and his smooth baritone voice is backed up with consummate skill on six & twelve string guitars, harmonica and mandolin.

Michael has been among the winners of the prestigious "New Folk" competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, and his involvement with the seminal Fast Folk Musical Magazine in New York City has led to his song Long Black Wall being included in an upcoming CD on Smithsonian Folkways celebrating twenty years of Fast Folk. This February 2002 release will dovetail nicely with the release of his newest CD, Little Movies, a collection of fourteen new original songs recorded over the last two years.

Other recordings include My Evil Twin (1992) and New Suit Of Clothes (1994), on the internationally respected Shanachie label, and in 1997, In Another Life came out on the Portland, Oregon based Waterbug Records. Early Jerling (1998), is also on Waterbug, and is a digitally remastered compilation of the best cuts from his self released LPs On Top of Fool's Hill (1981), and Blue Heartland (1988).

Through all of these recordings Michael displays his first-rate lyrical sense and impressive musicianship. A keen student of the good and ghastly in American life, Michael weaves themes like a novelist, evoking our shortcomings and dreams without yielding to cynicism or sentimentality.

Often praised as a "songwriter's songwriter" who composes in styles influenced by the wealth of American music, he has been characterized as an artist who performs his "extraordinary songs with the uncommon ability to deliver them to an audience with power and grace."

"He's got the literate humor and eclectic taste of Lyle Lovett...yet a skewed vision all his own." - Request Magazine

"Stronger than new rope... especially recommended to fans of Gorka, Greg Brown, Dave Alvin or any other real smart people who make real good music." - Icon, Iowa City

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©2001 - 2008 by Michael Jerling

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