Gregory Alan Isakov

Bio

Gregory Alan Isakov South African-born, Philly-raised musician whose music is all tones of sepia and creeping warmth “His voice is just putting it out there … no affecta
tion or pretension. It’s like punk folk.”
—Amy Ray, Indigo Girls “Hints of everyone from Steve Earle to Gillian Welch also creep into Isakov’s twangy, shaded folk…”

“Writing and performing is a mystery to me,” explai
ns singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
Gregory Alan Isakov.
“I try to get myself out of the way as
much as I can.” This Empty Northern Hemisphere
is Isakov’slatest collection of songs in which he conjures the miracles and heartaches of day to day living then transforms them into melodies, with a serious commitment to songcraft and musicianship. “The record for me is about traveling a lot, leaving things behind and feeling like the whole world’s been pulled out from beneath you,” he says.
Isakov composed the songs for This Empty Northern Hemisphere following his relocation from the Colorado wilds to the town of Boulder. The period also marked the beginning of a new creative cycle for the 28-year-old singer songwriter, who combines his personal past with poetry to create a musically vis-ceral present. “I’ve always liked song-based old-time music along with ‘70s-string-section-jazz-type things. I think it all creeps into my songs. But the
n I wasPearl Jam’sbiggest fan too,” he laughs. Born in South Africa, Isakov’s family immigrated to the US in opposition to the apartheid. “My parents took a lot of risks in leaving. The experience instilled in me the feeling that life is quality not quantity based.”Isakov was seven when they settled in the Philadelphia are a, a time he describes as understanda-bly challenging for the family, though he personally felt at home in his new multi-cultural environment. Since that time he’s been a traveler. “I’ve lived in so many different places; I don’t feel indigenous to anywhere.” Raised on his parents’ music collection that consisted of two records, Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hitsand We Are The World, Isakov says, “I listened to those records a thousand times each.” He played jazz saxophone at school but eventually gravitated
to his older brother’s electric guitar. “I think it stuck
because I never took lessons—and there was no teacher in my head when I played.” As a teen he attended folk festivals and was impressed by songsmithsGreg Brown and
Dar Williams, but it was Bruce Springsteen’sThe Ghost of Tom
Joad that proverbially changed his life. “That was a big
one for me. There was a mood to the record I was completely blown away by. Listening to these writers closely, one day I had the realization that these people had no idea what a big part of my life they were and how they’d created the soundtrack to it.” It wasn’t long after his epiphany that
Isakov began to create his own music. Moving to Colorado in 1999 to study horticulture, he simultaneously embarked on a career as an acoustic singer-songwriter. He debuted with the gentle Rust Colored Stones in 2003 and followed with the haunting Songs for October (2005) and the Celtic-influenced That Sea, The Gambler(2007). It was
while touring that he caught the attention of Ameri
cana singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile who liked what she heard and passed on Isakov’s music to Amy Ray of the
Indigo Girls. “He’s a really great writer and really raw. His
voice is just putting it out there. There’s no affectation or pretension. It’s like punkfolk,” saysRay
.
In 2008, the Denver publicationWestword
named him their Best Acoustic Folk Artist. The previous year he was given the paper’s Best of Denver Singer-
Songwriter award; they called him “a rootsier Glen Phillips
channelingKelly Joe Phelps.”
Isakov feels an artistic kinship with folks like Phelps
(he ad-mires his ability to merge heaviness with humor) as
well as Carlile, who offered to sing and record parts of
This Empty Northern Hemisphere at her studio.
The pair also cut Leonard Cohen’s"One of Us Cannot Be Wrong," as a duet. “I think it’s one of the most beautiful songs in the world,” says Isakov. “It was a struggle for me to see how I could make it better
—so I tried to make it as different as I could.”
Isakov
co-produced the album at various locations with
Jamie Mefford
who also engineered and is credited with God Noises
. He’s accompanied through-
out by his band,
the Freight
:
Jen Gilleran
(drums),
Jeb Bows
(violin) and
Phil Parker
(cello).
Isakov
plays guitars, banjo, piano and harmonica, among
other instruments.
The record opens with “Dandelion Wine.” “I don’t th
ink I’ve ever spent longer on a song, even though i
t’s only a few lines,” explains
Isakov
of the song’s
distilled verses. He wrote the beautifully minimali
st arrangement, “Words,” with his younger brother.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
inspired the winsome
“Idaho;” “Evelynne” and “If I Go I’m Goin’” are sto
ry songs, in time-honored singer-songwriter traditi
on.