Biography
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Born
20 April 1977 (age 47)
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Born In
Lansdowne, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States
Steve Gunn is a New York-based guitarist and songwriter. His albums represent milestones of contemporary guitar-driven, forward music. Mining the catalogs of Robbie Basho, Sandy Bull, Michael Chapman, and Sonny Sharrock, among other titans of stringed-things, Steve has steadily processed these inspirations into a singular, virtuosic stream. Close listening reveals the influence of Delta and Piedmont country blues, free jazz, and psych on the continually unfolding compositions. Friendships and collaborations with Jack Rose, Tom Carter, Meg Baird, and Michael Chapman colored the disciplined evolution of the deconstructed blues sound, at once transcendent and methodical, that is now Gunn’s signature.
With a career spanning nearly fifteen years, Steve has produced volumes of critically acclaimed solo, duo, and ensemble recordings. Gunn’s 2009 solo masterpiece, Boerum Palace, demonstrated a fully realized power for songcraft. Steve started to sing more and developed a commanding vocal style equal to his guitar practice. His acclaimed instrumental duo recordings with Truscinski, Sand City (2010) and Ocean Parkway (2012), cemented his place among the top of his peers, both present and past. These documents display Gunn’s compositional penchant for charting musical travelogues that ramble through city and wilderness alike. Dispatches home are not merely descriptive but corporeal; the evocative, rhythmic power of his writing and phrasing carries the listener along bodily. Steve builds songs as exploratory vessels, opens them up for mechanical tinkering, and lives in them through ceaseless improvisatory permutations.
Two solo albums have been released on Three Lobed Recordings, and two albums as one half of Gunn-Truscinski Duo also released on Three Lobed.
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