Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Gordon Lightfoot, Richard Shindell, Jackson Browne, John Prine, Phil Ochs, Thich Nhat Hanh, B. Traven, Leonard Cohen, Shakespeare, JS Bach, Billy Bragg, The Boss, Mark Knopfler, Neil Young, Ian and Sylvia, Jack Elliott, Tom Rush, Tom Paxton, Everly Bros., Richard Farina, Bono, Chaucer, Louis Armstrong, TVZ and a lot more dead people.
After an early experiment with a cigar box and rubber bands, Steve Klinger got his first actual guitar around the same time he borrowed his mother’s eyebrow pencil to draw sideburns on his face so he could audition for Elvis in the sixth-grade musical. Alan Rappaport got the part, so Steve chucked Elvis for the Everly Brothers, and over the next few years started hanging around Washington Square Park and soaking up bluegrass and then the folk revival that produced Baez, Dylan, Lightfoot and the new generation of singer-songwriters. He can’t quite remember the first song he wrote but thinks it had the lines, Bluebird over the mountain, bluebird over the sea, as he remembers singing that in the little 75-cent recording booth in Coney Island where he cut his first--and last--acetate record.
The songs started coming in earnest when he moved to Santa Fe in the early ’70s and made an occasional open-mic appearance at The Ark coffeehouse on Water Street, where Eliza (then Lisa) Gilkyson commanded the stage. Candlelit nights on Glorieta Mesa and then Truchas in northern New Mexico inspired a profusion of songs that made it as far as the tape recorder and a bureau drawer as time and space to play were challenged by such practical matters as driving up and down a mountain to work and helping raise two energetic boys in a four-room adobe with outdoor plumbing.
The move back to civilization in Las Cruces included rescuing a weekly newspaper from grave debility, and the arrival of daughter Corinna, but the music emerged from underground and took a new political direction after 9-11 and the stifling self-censorship of the media in the run-up to the Iraq war. Mixing more personal topics with strong, often satiric songs about the direction of American attitudes and policies, Steve began to sing at anti-war rallies and organized a First Fridays open mic at the Peace and Justice Center of Las Cruces. He jammed and performed at the Gallery Cafe and Stonehaven Tea and played with the local reggae band, Guava Jelly, at Mountain View Co-op Market, and also appeared there as a solo performer.
In August 2005, he and his partner Kathy Meyer sang at the 60-year commemoration of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings, held at Ashley Pond in Los Alamos, NM. For two years, he and Kathy were the featured musical artists at the NARAL Roe v. Wade anniversary rallies at City Hall in Las Cruces. In October, 2006 Steve and Kathy performed at the historic Fountain Theatre in Mesilla before the film, Who Killed the Electric Car, and in November they journeyed to Albuquerque to take part in the first annual Peace Out at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice.
Steve’s self-produced CD, Songs of Freedom, appeared in late 2004, and a backlog of about 20 songs await recording as soon as he can recall how to crank up the Korg D1200, in between editions of Grassroots Press, the bi-monthly alternative newspaper he publishes in Las Cruces.
This just in--Steve’s new CD, Land of Make-Believe is finished and will soon be available on CD Baby. The six new songs on MySpace are from the album.
Hi Steve, Wow, Love your songs, vibe, spirit, aesthetic. I'm also a huge fan of GRaSS RooTs FREE PRESS - Go INDY MeDia - Love your courage, vision, & Dedication to making our world safer & cleaner and more equitable.
and now for a quick JON forrest Little. Please pick up the GRass Roots to see how I promote my music.
Weekly Alibi in ABQ just featured me.....check it Pretty Please,,,Love ya, stay in touch, saludos desde planet earth, abrazos y besos, paz y amor siempre, YOU are muy Dreamy y wicKedBueno,
