
George Carver's music is an idiosyncratic, low-key blend of jazz, blues,
folk and country. The singer, songwriter and multi instrumentalist who
currently resides in Austin, Texas, can boast of as much experience in other
areas of the music business as he's had on the stage. Born and raised in Buffalo,
New York, inspired equally by futurist R. Buckminster Fuller and bluesman Muddy
Waters, Carver was schooled in music by local Western New York masters Stan
Szelest and Sandy
Konikoff . After a few rootless years of singing and playing he helped
found the bluesy punk-rock band Tot Rocket & the Twins, taking up residence
in New York City in the early Eighties. His decade-plus in New York found him
filling other roles. He sold guitars to the stars on the famous block of shops
along 48th street. As an engineer at Top Cat Studios, he worked
with a long list of artists including Whitney Houston, Joe Cocker, Duran Duran,
Aerosmith, PIL, and Bob Dylan, as they rehearsed, cut demos or played label
showcases. Later, he composed and produced all kinds of music for film and TV
out of KMA Studios on Times Square, as well producing and recording diverse
artists like modern jazz improviser Cooper-Moore, shakuhachi master James Nyoraku,
and the great Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji.
Moving to Austin in 1991 to provide a more hospitable environment for his family,
Carver's musical horizons expanded considerably when he became immersed in Western
Swing, the freewheeling čhillbilly jazzî that was born in Texas in the Thirties.
That's when he took up the eight string lap (non-pedal) steel, learning from
such Lone Star masters as Jimmy Day, Cindy Cashdollar, John Ely and Junior Brown,
and using the energetic, feel-good sound as a counterpoint to the world-weary,
more darkly humorous music he writes and performs with his band The Modern Agriculture.
In addition to fronting his own group, Carver plays with Mark
Rubin and the Ridgetop Syncopators and Lubbock bluesman R.C.
Banks He also works regularly as a producer and musician around town.
Among the highlights of his Austin phase, he's been a finalist in the John Lennon
Songwriting Contest; won a Parent's Choice Award for Down at the Zoo,
his CD with Austin funkster Papa Mali; performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington
D.C. with the Ridgetop Syncopators; backed Gwyneth Paltrow on guitar in the
movie Infamous; and been the featured artist at festivals
like the 2005 Breda Jazz Festival in Holland, and the Winnipeg and Calgary folk
festivals in Canada in the Summer of 2006. Following the release of his
1998 album God the Mother, Carver signed with the Dutch
label Pink Records and began touring Belgium and the Netherlands where he returns
regularly. |