George Scherer
George Scherer began his career as a performing musician at the tender age of three, when he climbed on a piano bench at Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church in Hueytown, AL, and sang all the verses to "The Old Rugged Cross" for the Sunday morning congregation. Later that year, while in Children's Hospital, he amazed and entertained the nurses with renditions of "Your Cheatin' Heart" and "Kawliga" by Hank Williams. Although, he only began making his living as a musician in 1992, he has been singing all his life, and playing guitar and writing songs since his first year in college.
Over the years, he’s spent time driving a truck, working in a factory, bumming around Nashville and up the eastern seaboard to New York, hitching-hiking around Canada, working for the phone company, raising a family, studying history and writing sports, but the one constant was his music. With time, he became an accomplished guitar and harmonica player to back up his strong, soulful voice, and gradually added a wide list of songs both, original and covers.
Since 1992, George has performed his eclectic mix of "folk-rock & country-blues" at clubs and other venues throughout Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi. He has performed at the Johnny Shines Memorial Concert in Tuscaloosa, Do-Dah-Day in Birmingham, the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, GA, the Celebrate Marietta Festival in Marietta, GA, during the Olympics, the Carrboro Music Festival & the Open Eye Café in Carrboro, NC, BayFest in Mobile, and at the Briarfield Music Festival just south of Birmingham.
With the release of his new album, “The Election Year Waltz” (2004), George has placed himself solidly in the tradition of American folk artists like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, John Prine and Michelle Shocked, who know that music can be both entertaining and edifying. Music that seems to be leaning back in it’s chair, while causing the listener to sit up on the edge of theirs. The album begins with “Two Bush Blues”, a country-blues romp, that takes both good-hearted and caustic aim at the two Bush administrations, and ends with the campy, sing-a-long, “The Election Year Waltz”, in which he seems to indict the entire political system. In between, there is plenty of whimsical fun and social commentary, in just the right mix, so that it doesn’t come off heavy-handed.
"Two Bush Blues", first caught the ear of John Wiengart, host of the long running radio show, "Music You Can't Hear on the Radio" on WPRB in Princeton, NJ. It, and all the other tracks from the CD, have since been played on radio stations from Maine to California, including the nationally syndicated, "The Midnight Special" and "The Folk Sampler", and has been reviewed in several national publications. Wiengart called it "a terrific song for 2004 that is politically smart and sophisticated, and musically wonderful," and one radio listener said, "I literally spit coffee out my nose when the song came on".
His previous CD's, "Scherersongs"(1996), and Amillennium blues@ (1999), have been featured and reviewed in The Birmingham News, The Birmingham Weekly, IndieSheet (Dallas, TX), South by Southeast (Auburn, AL), The Free Press, King Kudzu (Montgomery, AL) The Mobile Press-Register, Playground (Columbus, GA), and The Birmingham Post-Herald. His songwriting has been recognized in several contests, including the 2003 Hank Williams Songwriting Contest ("Radio Rodeo") and the 2003 Oklahoma Songwriters' Assn, One-to-One competition ("Land of the Bottom Line" and "Street Singer's Blues"). One reviewer described his songs as "truly delicious country blues that find their way straight to the soul . . .low-key and sad, as good blues should be, with that crescent glimmer of hope for better times ahead. (Don Pflaster, ImpactPress.com)"