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All Genres > Country > Country Folk > JASON FICKEL: Rio Rancho Drive

"Fickel's songs straddle the line between blues storytelling and crafty country picking. His songs are tender, poignant, occasionally melancholy, and even humorous....[His] voice is a mellifluous instrument, lilting, and clear." - The Herald-Times, (Bloomington, Ind.)

Jason Fickel was born in Kansas and raised in western Colorado, steeped in the wide-open west: cowboys, rodeos, and country-and-western music. As he picked up the guitar and began singing, the first songs he learned were old-time country favorites.

Bitten by the blues as a teenager, he headed south to Mississippi where he apprenticed himself to bluesman James "Son" Thomas, learning the blues trade from the master, traveling with him to performances throughout the South. Soon he was playing professionally, opening shows for the Subdudes and John Hammond, with a mix of blues and original songs. Next Fickel headed north, first to Rhode Island, where he played coffeehouses and biker bars, and then on to Chicago.

During his Chicago years, Jason honed his songwriting craft. The songs emerged - not surprisingly - as a mixture of Mississippi blues and Colorado country. By 1997 he had recorded his debut CD on Tie Records, True, Kansas. Fickel spent the late 1990s playing his songs and telling his stories at Chicago coffeehouses including the fabled No Exit Café.

In 2000, after years of traveling across the country and absorbing its music, Fickel settled in Indiana - "Crossroads of America" - and has continued performing and writing new material.

Fickel's performances have included Bear's Place, The Cellar Lounge, Border's Books and Music, The Upland Brewery, Vertigo, and the John Waldron Arts Center.

His second CD, Rio Rancho Drive, was released in summer 2002. David Coonce of the Herald-Times calls the album's, Hey Estelle, "wistful" as it "laments the passage of youth and its attendant adventures with a keen eye and graceful resignation."

For booking/press:
Jason Fickel
1708 Circle Drive
Bloomington, IN 47401
812-323-8375
Jason@JasonFickel.com

Check out the artist's website:
http://www.JasonFickel.com

Track List:
1. Next Time You Head South
2. Eden
3. Sad News
4. Lake Shore Drive
5. Remind Me
6. Beautiful Lithuanian Wife
7. Caddo, Texas
8. Hey Estelle
9. Coffee Grounds
10. I Tried But I Can't (Live Life Your Way)
11. Keep On, Brother Wright
12. Can't Let Go

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