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Dave Clupper

Dave Clupper Radio

General Info

  • Genre: Acoustic / Folk / Rock

    Location Tulsa, Oklahoma, US

    Profile Views: 28350

    Last Login: 3/24/2010

    Member Since 12/12/2007

    Website http://www.daveclupper.com

    Record Label Crow Creek

    Type of Label Indie

  • Bio

    .. .... .. .. .. .. .... ..On The Child, first released back in ’03, singer-songwriter Dave Clupper examined the relationship between spirituality and religion, looking at it with a poet’s eye and expressing it with a believer’s heart. The songs that came out of him for the disc he dubbed “spiritual alternative folk,”.. ..He’s altered the definition of his music for his second CD, Letting Go. Now, he says, “It’s still probably folk, but I might use the term ..experiential folk’ now, because in a sense my music is just a response to my perceptions – or, a lot of times, to God. It’s an edification of joy, a response to sorrow, to blessing, to absurdity, to injustice... ..“The first disc is kind of a rant, with a lot of the songs clustered around that notion of religiosity in conjunction with spirituality,” he adds. “The second one, I think, is more transparent and evident. In essence, the second one is about stories. Most of them happened to me, a few were told to me, but I’ve experienced them all in some way. So this disc is me saying, ..Hey, this is who I am. This is what I’ve experienced over the last 10 or 15 years of my life.’ Like Woody said, you can only write about what you can see.”.. ..“Woody” is, of course, Woody Guthrie, the towering Depression-era singer and songwriter who continues to cast a very long shadow over those musical artists possessing a strong social consciousness and sense of fair play. Clupper has those traits in spades, and the fact that he shares Guthrie’s Oklahoma roots helps cement the bridge between the two. On Letting Go, Clupper sweetly acknowledges his spiritual mentor on “Woody’s (Birthday) Song,” a number that’s received accolades from all over the world since being launched into cyberspace some months ago... ..For many of those listeners, “Woody’s (Birthday) Song” has provided an entry point to the singular music created by Clupper and his studio cohorts, which include his wife, Jill, and daughters Elisa, Ellen, and Abby, along with Tulsa music veterans like fiddler Rick Morton, keyboardist Peter DesLesDernier, drummer John Dellavedova, and guitarist/engineer Hayden Burlingame. Music lovers drawn to Clupper’s Guthrie tribute because of its subject are now getting to know Dave Clupper as an artist and performer as well, seeking out the other tracks on his new disc and The Child... ..Among the songs stirring up praise from all over are the Letting Go cuts “Fine Line,” inspired by the injustice he sees in the treatment of white-collar criminals, and “Sunset Train” – which, in a disc full of special songs, has an especially personal meaning to him... ..“I wrote ..Sunset Train’ for my mother, who was in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s,” he says. “Sure, it was to help me deal with what was happening to her, but it was also a message for her that she could let it go, that she could go on. She believed, as a lot of Christians do, in the concept of the life after, that this is just a stopping place. So instead of holding onto people, we need to give them permission to go. We’re holding on because we still want them in our world, and when they go, it’s our loss, not theirs... ..“..Sunset Train’ is a functional song, saying that it’s all right to let them go. It’s been played at three funerals that I know of, and I’ve had people tell me, unbidden and unasked, that it helped them with their parents’ death.”.. ..Letting Go, the last disc to date recorded in Tulsa’s legendary Church Studio – a place with its own spiritual vibe -- is full of that sort of wisdom and insight, the kind that provides a musical balm for the soul while putting a unique spin on accepted perceptions and attitudes. As the disc’s title implies, some of the songs are about letting go -- of what’s bad, or selfish, or destructive. Others, however – like “Prettiest Girl,” which he wrote for his and Jill’s 25th wedding anniversary -- are about holding on. What they have in common is a lyrical maturity and uncommon wisdom as well as a knowledge of the potential of music to be a force for good... ..“The hippies used to say that music can heal the world,” Clupper observes. “I know that music is therapy, and beauty, and an expression of life. I don’t know if it can heal the world, but it definitely touches a part of the wound.”.. .. .. ...... .. .. .... .. .. .... .. .. .. .. .. ............  .. .. .. .. .... .. ...."Letting Go".... ..2009 Release.. ..1. Letting Go.. 2. Reminisce.. 3. Fine Line.. 4. Witch.. 5. Maiden's Dance.. 6. Big Bertha.. 7. Prettiest Girl.. 8. Woody's (Birthday) Song.. 9. Duncan Park.. 10. Sunset Train.. 11. Isaiah's Call.. 12. Play Mate/this Land Is Your Land.. 13. Legacy.. .... .. .... .. .. .. .. .. .. ...... .. .... .. .. .. .. ................  .. .. .... .... .. ...."The Child".... ..2003 Release.. ..1. Middle-class Merry-go-round.. 2. Again.. 3. Cradle Song.. 4. Matter Of Time.. 5. Bittersweet.. 6. The Child.. 7. Bittersweet (Refrain).. 8. Love's Song.. 9. Heaven Everyday.. 10. Just A Closer Walk With Thee.. 11. 11-11.. 12. My Prayer.. 13. Come Spirit Come .... .. .... .. ..

  • Members

  • Influences

    Arlo Guthrie ..Bob Dylan ..My Family ..James Taylor ..Johnny Cash ..John Prine ..Kris Kristofferson ..Neil Young ..Robert Earl Keen ..Woody Guthrie ..The Beatles

  • Sounds Like

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