Stephen Yerkey

Stephen Yerkey is a classic case of "Why the hell isn't this guy more well known?!" He's a freakishly gifted singer-songwriter with an eerie, elastic tenor drawl that shifts effortlessly into a quavering falsetto. Darkly tinged, bluntly poetic narratives of street life, despair, and love are expressed in songs that combine elements of folk, blues, country, jazz and vaudeville; his emotionally charged sonic shorthand presents the listener with vivid, neon-lit images. Yerkey is also a terrific guitar player whose songs are built around offbeat chord voicings and stark, Country Blues-style picking. Furthermore, he's criminally underrecorded, with just one record (Confidence Man) as a solo artist and one as the leader of a band called Non Fiction under his belt.