Welcome to my promo page, with bio, photos, concert videos, and other fine stuff:
Elijah Wald has been performing for almost fifty years in a wide variety of styles, from blues, folk, ragtime, swing, country, and cowboy songs to classic Swahili pop, the Bahamian guitar style of Joseph Spence, and Mexican corridos. He hit the road in his late teens as a rambling busker, and 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 Vancouver, Tokyo, and Sydney, including recent tours of Italy and the Czech Republic.
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’ movie Inside Llewyn Davis); Howard Armstrong, the legendary Black string band master, with whom he toured for five years; Eric Von Schmidt, the founding father of the Cambridge folk/blues scene; and Jean-Bosco Mwenda, the father of Congolese acoustic guitar. He won a 2002 Grammy (for liner notes, which in Van Ronk’s words “is kind of like getting the Nobel Prize in fingerpainting,” but still nice), 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.
Elijah’s music and stories are deeply informed by his second career as a chronicler of American and world music. Along with the Van Ronk memoir, he has written books on Josh White and Robert Johnson, an exploration of Jelly Roll Morton and the censorship of early blues, an alternative history of popular music provocatively titled How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Dylan Goes Electric!, the basis of the film A Complete Unknown.
For more about his books, recordings, and other projects, check out his homepage. His Songobiography site has videos of hundreds of songs, with stories and commentary. Along with his regular concerts, he has a one-man “Bob Dylan in Greenwich Village” show, exploring Dylan’s early years and influences, and a show exploring the evolution and range of early blues styles.
Some quotes about Elijah’s music:
“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
My Songobiography has over 400 videos, ranging over the breadth of my repertoire, and here’s a sample of live performances — some blues, a Congolese song, and a country yodeling number from my Dylan show. (There are more live clips on the page for the Dylan program.)
Two songs from Mississippi John Hurt:
A Congolese favorite from Jean-Bosco Mwenda:
A Mississippi Delta hitchhiking blues from Robert Johnson:
And a yodeling country song with freight-train harmonica from Roy Acuff via Bob Dylan:
For more information, booking, interviews, or for any other good reason, contact: elijah@elijahwald.com