Over the past
dozen years or so, John Voorhees has played in numerous
coffeehouses and music festivals between Louisiana
and Vermont. He has released 5
full-length CDs of original music, his songs have been included in
three CD compilations and he has opened for such nationally-known artists
as Livingston
Taylor.
Burlington,
VT's "Seven Days" arts magazine described John as "a self-deprecating
wordsmith who knows a thing or two about melody... A modern folk popster
who seems in love with the world and doesn't need to make himself the
center of it."
Listeners have compared his performance style to John Denver, Don McLean,
Billy Joel, Phil Ochs and James Taylor (but he wishes he sounded more like
Ray Charles).
John was born in Michigan,
but raised in the town of Hammond, LA, an easy hour's drive from both New
Orleans and Baton Rouge.
In the late 1980's, John DJ'd for his college radio station, absorbing the tunes
of REM, Elvis Costello, They Might Be Giants and XTC. In the summer of
1990,
John
picked up an acoustic guitar and hasn't put it down yet.
John's first songs, written during the first Bush administration, were
very political and addressed such topics as freedom of speech, unchecked
corporate power and the Gulf War. His more recent material tends to explore
personal politics with songs about dysfunctional relationships, hypocrisy
and the power of natural cycles, equilibrium and fate.
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