Tracy S. Feldman: Biography (longer version)
Tracy S. Feldman is from the Northeastern US, born in a suburb of Philadelphia that transformed from farm fields to industry and cookie-cutter housing developments. He grew up as a biologist and musician in a family of artists, including parents who create sketches, weavings, and glasswork, and a grandfather who played violin. He has since traveled and lived in many places, including Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina, Washington State, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Costa Rica, and Panama. Each place offers stories, images, and sounds that Tracy weaves into his songs. His songs are stories he hears in the towns, forests, mountains and prairies. He writes songs to paint portraits, to ask questions and to rediscover the world.
Tracy's infectious energy pervades his music. Inspired by progressive rock and new folk, his songs combine classical training in violin and a unique self-taught guitar style that ranges from fast-paced and hard-edged to introspective and delicate. His poetic lyrics explore human emotion and connections, and are interwoven with metaphors based in his life-long love of natural history and ecology, and of connections between humans and their world.
Tracy’s recordings include Standing Room Only (1999), Sea of Lucky Numbers (2003), Survivin’ in the ‘Burbs (2006), and Middle of the Road (2009). He has performed on radio shows (recently Northern Spirit Radio in WI), house concerts, cafés and festivals, and has recorded fiddle with singer-songwriters all over the eastern and central US, including Akire Bubar (Arms of the Sun), Friction Farm (Believe), Brian Hershberger (Mantle), Mary Rocap (Sweet Mimosa), Laura Silvestri (Standing), Jamie Purnell (Two Different Towns), and Greg Taylor (All In My Hands). Tracy has a Ph.D. in Biology from Duke University, studying the ecology of plant-insect interactions, and has returned to Durham after living and working in Oklahoma and Wisconsin for many years.
Quotes:
"Tracy S. Feldman writes lyrics as poignant as Leonard Cohen and Bruce Cockburn and as if that wasn't enough, he plays guitar as masterfully as Michael Hedges, from delicate finger picking to rhythmic strums that make his guitar sound like a whole damn band. His violin chops are amazing, too, and not even Hedges could lay claim to that. Check him out y'all."
-- Jamie Anderson, music journalist/singer-songwriter
“Feldman has always had a gift for bringing such strong emotion out of such
quietly contemplative songs. He’s a modern version of the 60s folk poet with
more passion and fire in his soul.”
--Jennifer Layton, Indie Web Magazine
“Tracy strives for perfection in his lyrics.”
--Jim Graves, WFSS
“Akire’s acoustic guitar work is simple yet gorgeous and is augmented nicely
by such things as the perfectly arranged fiddle pieces of Tracy Feldman.”
--Ray Dorsey, Chaos Realm
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