"Rawness improbably balanced by a mixture of danger and delicacy," says one Rolling Stone writer, "is what gives Citizen Cope his edge. As a singer, songwriter and producer, he stands alone-an artist immune to corruption."
Dug deep into the rich soil of American music, Cope's roots are complex You may think of Bill Withers or Neil Young or John Lee Hooker or Van Morrison or Willie Nelson or Al Green. Yet, listening to Cope, you also may think of none of the above. You may not think at all, but rather feel a man exposing stories that haunt his heart.
In the past nine years, he has produced four albums of depth and distinction, each a critical chapter in his search for a sound that paints an auditory American landscape in which despair wars with hope and hope, tied to love, is elusive.
While making records over the past decade, Cope has wrestled with a number of record companies. They have loved him, rejected him, readopted him, and ignored him. Listening to his uncompromised songs-to the tough integrity in his voice-it's not surprising to learn that he hasn't hesitated to go over the heads of the music execs. From the get-go, he has taken his case to the people. He has toured tirelessly. He has brought his stories-with a band or simply with his guitar-to whatever venue would have him. His motivation to make music directly in front of people, so matter the size of the crowd, has won his a vast audience in America and abroad. As a troubadour, he has prospered, relentlessly criss-crossing the land, his songs in his back pocket.
In fact, with The Rainwater LP, his self-reliance has been realized in the form of his own independent label. Citizen Cope is a self-realized musical/poetic/production entity. In that sense, his Americanism is profound. His approach is radical. He's a rebel in the tough tradition of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He wanders through the woods alone. His accountability is to his own heart, his own values and vision.
Cope's a one-man band, trying to make sense of all the nonsense that marks the 21st Century.
$1.00 of every CITIZEN COPE TICKET purchased will go to purchasing musical instruments for students at Red Lake Middle School in Red Lake, MN. Red Lake is a part of Turnaround Arts, a PROGRAM of President Obama's President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities that is using arts education to help students succeed. For more info, visit: http://turnaroundarts.pcah.gov.
