Mark Erelli

Mark Erelli (born June 20, 1974) is an American singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and touring folk musician from Reading, Massachusetts who earned a master's degree in evolutionary biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst before pursuing a career in music.

Erelli has released nine solo albums and three collaborative albums.

He formed the Mark Erelli Band and in 1997 released the album Long Way From Heaven.

After attending the North East Folk Alliance Conference in 1997, Erelli signed a recording contract with Signature Sounds Recordings.

He was awarded the Iguana Music Fund Fellowship award from Cambridge's Club Passim and used the proceeds to build a home studio.

Erelli attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and in 1997 enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he obtained a master's degree in evolutionary biology in 1999.

His self-titled debut album was released in 1999, the same year that he won the Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk Award.

His first recording for the Signature Sounds label, Compass & Companion, spent ten weeks in the Top Ten on the Americana Chart.

Erelli has worked as a side musician for singer songwriters Lori McKenna and Josh Ritter.

He has performed at various music festivals and shared the stage with John Hiatt, Dave Alvin, and Gillian Welch.

Erelli's self-titled debut CD was released on the Signature Sounds label in 1999.

Produced by Lorne Entress, Erelli was backed by musicians Duke Levine, Kevin Barry, Jim Lamond, Dave Dick, Joe Barbato, Roger Williams, and Mike Dinallo and guest vocalists, Rani Arbo, Louise Taylor, and Ben Demerath.

He later won the Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk Award in the same year.

The following year, Erelli's sophomore recording for Signature Sounds, Compass & Companion was released.

Again produced by Entress, it features a title-song duet with country artist Kelly Willis.

Duke Levine and Kevin Barry once again lent support on guitar along with Dave Dick on banjo and Entress on the jaw harp and percussion.

The album charted for ten weeks in the Top Ten of the Americana Music Chart.

Later that year Erelli was nominated for two Boston Music Awards.

Erelli's next project was to forego the traditional studio and instead gather a group of musicians to play within the walls of the Civil War era Memorial Hall in Monson, Massachusetts.

When Erelli was asked if it was a concept album, he said: "The country has been through a lot, since 2000 really. Before September 11, that election of 2000 was a major thing. So, all the songs come out of that context. If the songs seem related, they all come out of that context over the last four years and they’re all coming through my lens and how I’m looking at the world. They all, in kinda one way or another, deal with the issue of how do you keep on keepin’ on when things seem really grim."

Sometimes viewed as his most political album, "Hope & Other Casualties" is "an attentive examination of current times interwoven with matters of the heart. His emotions straddle the ground between the personal and the political."

Guest vocalists include Kris Delmhorst and Jeffrey Foucault.

Over the course of four days in May 2001, Erelli sat down in a semi-circle on the stage of the hall with Lorne Entress, Joe Barbato, Kevin Barry, Jim Henry, and Jim Lamond.

The recording machines were turned on and everything was captured over the next four days.

The recording sessions were also captured on film and later aired as a documentary on PBS.

In 2004, Erelli hooked up with Boston-based country band The Spurs to delve into the worlds of Western swing, country, and rockabilly with the release of Hillbilly Pilgrim.

Erin McKeown is a guest vocalist on "Pretend."

"For folk fans, this disc may take some getting used to, but its pleasures are many."

Erelli's song “People Look Around”, which he co-wrote with Catie Curtis, was the Grand Prize winner at the 2005 International Songwriting Competition.

His songs have been recorded by Ellis Paul, Vance Gilbert, Antje Duvekot, and Red Molly.

Erelli was born in Boston and grew up in the town of Reading, Massachusetts.

Erelli performed in numerous high school musicals and founded the band, Freddie and Slip.

Later he was a member of the band Organic Ice Cube and wrote his first song "Hell In the Sky" as a member of the band Dead Flowers (Greg Pothier, Scott Collins, Brian Moynihan, Kevin Larimore, Kris Tuscano, Chris Kerrigan Borning).

Erelli was introduced to the music of Patty Larkin, Chris Smither, and other singer-songwriters by listening to the radio station WBOS.

Erelli co-produced, with Lorne Entress, his fifth Signature Sounds album Hope & Other Casualties, which was released in 2006.

Hope & Other Casualties was voted the number one album of 2006 by WUMB radio member listeners.

Innocent When You Dream, released in 2007, is a collection of lullabies and love songs, which features solo acoustic performances by Erelli as well as covers by Shawn Colvin, Townes van Zandt, and others.

Also in 2007, Erelli toured with Lori McKenna in support of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on their Soul 2 Soul tour which included appearances on Good Morning America and at the Grand Ole Opry.

Later that year Erelli invited fans to finance his next studio album - Delivered - referring to the project as a barn raising.

The project succeeded and the 11-song album produced by Josh Ritter's bassist, Zack Hickman, was released in 2008.