Souled American
Biography Souled American
Souled American
A pioneering band in what would become the alt-country movement of the 1990s, Souled American plays music rooted in American folk and country traditions in a style that's both playful and reverent. On early efforts like 1988's Fe and 1989's Flubber, Souled American's music had a loose, semi-acoustic sound dominated by acoustic and slide guitars, matched to vocals that bore a pronounced twang. With 1994's Frozen, Souled American introduced a different approach, dominated by languid tempos, minimal instrumentation, and an embrace of ambient, atmospheric textures, a style that carried through to 1996's Notes Campfire.
Singer/guitarist Chris Grigoroff and singer/bassist Joe Adducci formed Souled American in Chicago, IL 1986 after first collaborating in the group The Uptown Rulers, who specialized in ska and reggae. Guitarist Scott Tuma and drummer Jamey Barnard completed the lineup, which quickly honed an expansive, compellingly idiosyncratic approach to rock that reduced the idiom to its basic elements -- country, folk, and bluegrass chief among them -- then reassembled the parts to forge an otherworldly music quite unlike anything produced by the band's contemporaries. In 1988 Souled American signed to Rough Trade and issued their classic debut, Fe, a far-ranging effort that won them support in the independent music press. Flubber appeared just six months later and was supported by a tour opening for Camper Van Beethoven. But shortly after the release of 1990's moody and impressionistic Around the Horn, the U.S. division of Rough Trade went bankrupt, stranding Souled American without an American label and putting distribution of their product in limbo. The band soldiered on, issuing 1992's Sonny, a collection of covers, through Rough Trade's European branch, but few copies reached U.S. shores, and Barnard left the lineup to focus on his family. The remaining trio opted not to replace him, and reworked their sound, with 1994's spare, haunting Frozen trading percussion for a more spectral approach; it was issued by the German Moll Tonträger label.
The downbeat Notes Campfire was issued by Moll Tonträger in 1996; that same year, Scott Tuma left the group and later issued a handful of solo albums, while Chris Grigoroff and Joe Adducci continued on. Frozen was given a belated American release by Checkered Past Records in 1998, and their sibling label the Catamount Company issued Notes Campfire in the U.S. in 1999. 1999 also saw Souled American's Rough Trade releases become briefly available again on the independent tUMULT label. In 2002, Souled American contributed a cover of "Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends" to Nothing Left to Lose: A Tribute to Kris Kristofferson, a multi-artist project which also featured appearances from Calexico, Grandaddy, the Handsome Family, and Richard Buckner. In 2006, an unreleased Souled American track was included on a compilation CD released in tandem with the fourth issue of Mike McGonigal's music and literature magazine Yeti. Since then, Chris Grigoroff and Joe Adducci have continued to play live shows as Souled American, and have been working on a seventh album. The group's back catalog finally became available on streaming services in 2023. (Jason Ankeny, AMG)
