Bill Kirchen

Bill Kirchen is widely known for the trademark big-rig guitar riffs that powered the Commander Cody hit "Hot Rod Lincoln" into the Top 10 in 1972. Since 1993, he has recorded seven critically acclaimed albums of his own that have made him one of the musical elder statesmen of today's Americana music, which in truth was pioneered by acts like Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen back in the '70s.

For his new album, Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods on Proper Records, Kirchen puts the accent on songwriting, a talent that is sometimes overshadowed by his dazzling instrumental virtuosity. "I felt it was time to write some songs that cut closer to the bone," he says. And on such moving numbers as "Rocks Into Sand" and "One More Day," he succeeds admirably. All told, Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods is the culmination of one very rich American musical life.

On Hammer, the man known as "The King of Dieselbilly" and "A Titan of the Telecaster" visits most every sonic landmark along the proverbial Route 66 of American music that he's traveled for decades now as a player, songwriter and singer, and serves up a blue-plate special of such tasty and nourishing stylistic flavors as rock 'n' roll, honky-tonk, soul, rockabilly, Western swing, country, blues, boogie-woogie and more. The set captures the essence of Kirchen as "a devastating culmination of the elegant and funky," as he's described by his longtime friend and compatriot Nick Lowe, one of the noted musicians who plays on Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods.

Kirchen was nominated for a 2001 Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance for his song "Poultry in Motion" and inducted the next year into the Washington (D.C.) Area Music Association Hall of Fame alongside John Phillip Sousa and Dave Grohl of Nirvana and the Foo Fighters. He has lectured at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Smithsonian Institution and the 1998 International Conference on Elvis Presley in Memphis, and is featured in the TNN special Yesterday and Today: Honky-Tonk & Western Swing.

Kirchen began his musical journey in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he attended high school alongside Iggy Pop and Bob Seger. He soon picked up the guitar, initially emulating the finger picking of Mississippi John Hurt. Kirchen helped form Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, who revived and revitalized honky-tonk, boogie-woogie and Western swing for a rock audience. The group relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1969, and recorded seven albums for Paramount and Warner Bros. Records before the original band broke up in 1975. Along the way, they became staples of FM radio and a popular concert attraction, cut a disc that was later named one of the best 100 albums of all time by Rolling Stone (Live From Deep in the Heart of Texas), and were the subject of one of the first and still among the finest books about the inner workings of the music business, Star-Making Machinery.

In recent years, Kirchen recorded with Lowe on the latter's Impossible Bird album and played on the subsequent worldwide tour and live album, and toured and cut a live album with the Twangbangers (in which he joined forces with fellow Telecaster master Redd Volkaert, singer and songwriter Dallas Wayne and steel guitar savant Joe Goldmark). He also reunited with Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen for a 25th-anniversary performance on A Prairie Home Companion in 2001, and was tapped by the National Commission for the Traditional Arts to record an album, Dieselbilly Road Trip, for a Heritage Music Collection. Kirchen remains the consummate working musician, wowing audiences night after night at the scores of shows he plays every year.Join Bill and a wonderful group of musicians and artists on your musical journey to Costa Rica

Scheduled Artists

Kevin Mckrell and Kate Taylor

Greg Brown and Bill Kirchen

Call 914-382-8390

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