Welcome to my press kit, with photos, recent concert videos, and a short bio. My homepage at www.elijahwald.com has lots more information about my books, recordings, and other projects, and this “songobiography” site includes videos of hundreds of songs, with all kinds of associated stories and commentary.

Elijah Wald has been performing for over forty years in a wide variety of styles, from blues, ragtime, swing, country, and cowboy songs to classic Swahili pop, the Bahamian guitar style of Joseph Spence, and Mexican corridos. Starting out as a busker, he has toured all over the United States and much of the rest of the world, playing in coffeehouses, bars, nightclubs, colleges, concert halls,  and on festival stages from New Orleans to Chicago, Tokyo, Salzburg, and Sydney.

Elijah’s mentors include Dave Van Ronk, with whom he performed, recorded, and wrote Dave’s memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street (which inspired the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis); Howard Armstrong, the legendary Black string band master, with whom he toured for five years; and Jean-Bosco Mwenda, the father of Congolese acoustic guitar. He won a 2002 Grammy (admittedly for best liner notes, which in Van Ronk’s immortal words “is kind of like getting the Nobel Prize in fingerpainting”), filmed a highly-regarded instructional video on the guitar style of the Bahamian wizard Joseph Spence, and his shows blend music and stories from a wide range of people and places in a compellingly personal style.

“a brilliant fingerpicker and distinctive singer” — The Boston Globe

“exuberant and educational” — The Times of India

“Great songs, sporty picking, and some of the prettiest shirts on God’s green earth.” — Dave Van Ronk

“Elijah Wald is a great folk singer who combines deft musicianship with great song choices and historical memory that sets him as one of the best in his field. Elijah has put in untold miles of traveling all over the world, meeting people and playing music with them. He is one of only a handful of folk musicians in his generation that is tightly connected to old iconic folk singers like Dave van Ronk and also to a new generation of musicians engaging with folk and traditional music in the new century. If Elijah Wald is playing a show, you won’t want to miss it.”
— Eli Smith, director of the Brooklyn Folk Festival and Washington Square Folk Festival

“Elijah has a highly accomplished traditional style of guitar and powerful songs. Although performing solo after a loud band, he was capable of handling a crowd of 1000 people and pulled a great festival performance. Highly recommended!”
— Štěpán Suchochleb, director of the Blues Alive Festival, Czech Republic

Elijah has hundreds of videos online as part of his Songobiography project, at this site — and here are a few of him in concert, at the Blues Alive Festival, Sumperk, Czech Republic, starting with two songs from Mississippi John Hurt:

A Congolese favorite from Jean-Bosco Mwenda:

A Mississippi Delta blues from Tommy Johnson:

For more information, booking, interviews, or a generally good time, contact: elijah@elijahwald.com