Bucky & Andy Dee - Chur, Switzerland 2009 Tour

Company of Folk – Folksongs of Illinois

Illinois has a rich folk and ethnic music heritage that seldom receives the scholarly, journalistic, or public attention it deserves. Anyone who begins to examine the folk music history of Illinois soon discovers that the Land of Lincoln may well have the most diverse and vibrant musical traditions of any state in the nation. Bucky Halker made that discovery several years ago in his musical travels and he set out to document the state’s music traditions and to make people more aware of them as well. To do so, Bucky worked with the Illinois Humanities Council, the Illinois Arts Council, and his own Company of Folk, to produce Folksongs of Illinois, a CD series that now includes four volumes.

Read more and listen to all four discs!

Caskets In The Cornfield

Audio samples from Bucky’s new project. Bucky’s trio, Johnsburg 3, just released a new CD in the summer of 2010. For years Bucky had collected folksongs from around Illinois and noticed a large number songs related to death, disaster, and dying. Well, he couldn’t resist recording a batch of these great songs and letting people in on a bit of “Illinois song noir.” He recruited his musical comrades Don Stiernberg (mandolin/fiddle/vocals) and Tom Piekarski (bass/voclas) and after an afternoon rehearsal they went into the studio and did this recording. Spontaneous and energetic performances. A trainwreck in Chatsworth, the assasination of Lincoln, the Mt. Vernon Cyclone, a fire at the Belleville Convent, the hanging of gangster Charlie Birger, the shooting of Wild Bill Hickok and more. What history and what fun. Johnburg 3 invent a new genre—Death Folk.

Welcome to Wisconsin vol. 2

Wisconsin 2-13-63, Volume 2 Bucky’s new CD, Wisconsin 2-13-63, Volume 2 is out.  Smart folks and hipsters world wide are picking up copies, so you better too! Order now.  Roots Highway calls it  “An album with thirteen small gems . . . . a great disc” (Italy, 2009).  Bucky’s latest offering travels the landscape of original American roots music, skillfully drawing on honky tonk, folk rock, straight ahead rock ‘n roll, R&B and countrypolitan. Big songs, a big voice and crafty arrangements wrapped in lonesome steel guitars, twangy Telecasters, the whirl of the B-3 organ, jumbo acoustic guitars, in-the-grove percussion, jazzy trumpets, punchy bottom end, and adept harmonies.

Welcome to Wisconsin vol. 1

Wisconsin, 2-13-63, Volume 1 “Beautiful songs and arrangements. Halker has offered us an especially successful CD.” (Concerto, Austria, August 2006) The songs stylistically range from straight country, to jazz, to jingly-jangly pop rock, to New Orleans R&B, to Tex Mex, to straight-ahead rock. There’s string sections on a few tunes and horns galore on others, plus ample doses of vocal harmonies, pedal steel guitars, mandolin, electric guitars, Hammond B-3 organ, and bits of dobro and lap steel.  Read more…