Search - Michael Meldrum :: Open Ended Question

Singer, writer, guitarist, and impresario Michael Meldrum?s whole-hearted generosity is legendary within the Buffalo, NY music scene. Now he gives back to his community once again with the release of Open Ended Question, his debut full-length album drawing upon three decades of songwriting. Recorded over a period of three years, the album showcases Meldrum?s rich musical background with tracks that range from jubilant New Orleans romps to somber folk ballads. Breezy summer tunes and gritty roadhouse blues become intriguing neighbors to Indian themes and meditative chants, while Meldrum?s honest tales of bars and empty streets make for sincere, accessible songs filled with intimate emotion and interwoven with religious imagery. Few musicians can claim to have had a greater influence on the Buffalo songwriting community than Meldrum. As a founding member of the Buffalo Song Project, he has been instrumental in bringing such folk icons as Townes Van Zandt, Michelle Shocked and Suzanne Vega?often in the early days of their careers?to Buffalo. He has cultivated the development of countless local performers, including Righteous Babe Records founder Ani DiFranco. Throughout her career, Ani has credited Meldrum as an early and significant influence; he showed her the possibilities of the guitar and encouraged her to perform in public before she was even a teenager. She performs on the new album, mixed and co-produced it, and she?s joined by other artists who share her high regard for Meldrum?s work, including Alison Pipitone, Michael Sheffield, Chris Panfil, Rob Lynch, Michael Morrissey, Jim Whitford, Four Shillings Short, Glenn Wallace, John Brady, Inga Yanoski, Sasha Spilleriff, John Allen, Barbara Way ! Wydysh, Joelle Labert, Geno McManus, Matt Pszonak and Ed Zielinski. Together, they represent a veritable Who?s Who of Western New York singers and instrumentalists.