BIOGRAPHY

Photo by Carole Cohen

WATCH: Howard Fishman: Musical Storyteller

Critically-acclaimed singer, guitarist, composer and bandleader Howard Fishman's exuberant, spontaneous, and unvarnished music has made him a favorite of audiences and critics alike. Fishman filters a deep passion for New Orleans jazz, Brooklyn soul, open-hearted country, blues and gospel music through a completely original, experimental aesthetic, to create a sound entirely his own. The New York Times has written that his music "transcends time and idiom."

Fishman began his musical career on the streets of New Orleans and in the subways of New York before landing his first major engagement at the Algonquin Oak Room in 1999. Since then, he has headlined in some of the most prestigious venues in the US and abroad, including: Lincoln Center, The Steppenwolf Theatre, The Blue Note, The Pasadena Playhouse, Joe's Pub, The Great American Music Hall, and Le Petit Journal in Paris. A testament to his wide-ranging appeal, Fishman has appeared on bills with such diverse artists as: Odetta, Yo Yo Ma, Maceo Parker, Califone, Robyn Hitchcock, Madeleine Peyroux, Allen Holdsworth and Nellie McKay.

Fishman is a frequent NPR guest, and has made feature-length appearances on "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, "World Cafe" with David Dye, "The Leonard Lopate Show" and "Soundcheck" with John Schaefer, among many others.

Although primarily known as a songwriter, Fishman began his career immersed in early jazz, folk, blues, and country music, creating a bedrock of knowledge of American roots forms that, when applied to his pop, classical and experimental leanings, helped forge the style for which he is known today (and which critics are, universally, at a loss to describe).

Fishman's most recent recording (his tenth), is "The Howard Fishman Quartet Vol. III: Moon Country." His next album, "Uncollected Stories" awaits release in fall 2013.  His original oratorio "we are destroyed," featuring his band plus four singer/actors, continues to be programmed, most recently at the Abrons Arts Center in NYC. "The Frozen North," Fishman's original score for the Buster Keaton silent film of the same name, was programmed and performed as part of the 2012 New York Guitar Festival at Merkin Hall in NYC. He is currently at work on a new project entitled "A Star Has Burnt My Eye," an examination of the life and music of Connie Converse, as well as a commissioned score for "Manna-Hata," a site-specific theater project to be performed in the Penn Station Post Office, produced by Peculiar Works in NYC.

Howard Fishman maintains a full-time touring schedule and has garnered a devoted following worldwide.