EXILES IN PARADISE is the NEW CD/LP COMING FALL 2010
Exiles In Paradise will be the second studio release by Aaron Berg. The album was recorded last November in Chicago, IL at the legendary North Branch studios on the windy city's tiny Goose Island. Berg who plays guitar, piano, and harmonica was joined by a veteran line up of Southern bandmates including the phenomenal Mike Bagwell (Pedal Steel & Dobro), Chris Garrett (Bass), and John Byce (Drums, Extras). Special guests included Jim Becker of Califone on fiddle and Tim Joyce of Lesser Birds of Paradise singing vocal harmonies.
The album is currently in the final stages of completion and should be out on CD/LP by Fall 2010. A national tour and the publication of Berg's first book entitled 'Midnight Shinng sun' will coincide with the CD/LP release. "The album has taken on a country element I didn't expect," Berg says, "but its still unapologetically dark in places, like a scream off the edge of a cliff. It's also the most pop oriented thing I think I've done, so who knows."
Born in South Carolina in 1984 to mom and pop owners of one of the oldest independent record stores in the United States, Aaron Berg grew up largely under a record bin and was playing in nightclubs and bars by fourteen. Originally an upright bass player, Aaron left South Carolina for New York City at age seventeen. He toured and recorded with a variety of folk and blues bands including bluegrass troubadour Peter Rowan before eventually moving to a basement studio in the Hispanic section of Brooklyn where he picked up guitar and began to write songs and sing in 2006. Since that time he has toured in 44 states and traveled on 5 continents both as a solo folk act and with his electric band The Heavy Love. Berg’s music is a nocturnal hymn of soul-powered Americana, both psychedelic and acoustic.
"Berg resides in New York but is originally from Greenville, making this release one of the finest folk-rock albums ever made by an Upstate musician. Only 24 years old, Berg sounds like a sage with a deep-throated vocal style that at various turns recalls Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Tom Waits. Hardly a typical singer-songwriter release, "Songs For Madame X" is full of lush musical arrangements and diverse instrumentation that makes it clear that Berg is a serious artist with unlimited potential."
--Dan Armonaitis, Syndicated Music Critic of Berg's 2007 debut (Spartanburg Herald-Journal, March 15, 2007)
"Aaron is one of the best people I know singing songs. There are lines in every song that just floor me. Aaron is big talent."
--Rebecca Martin, acclaimed folk/jazz singer (EMI recording artist / MAX JAZZ recording artist)
Not many musicians could truly claim a background sufficiently steeped in American roots tradtion to boast the label voodoo chile but if there was ever another among them it would be Aaron Berg. Born in 1984 and raised by ‘mom & pop’ record store owners in upstate South Carolina, he spent his childhood days largely under a record bin and was playing upright and fender bass by age fourteen in nightclubs, cafes, and bars with a variety of folk, blues, and rock n roll bands. In addition to having owned the record store in Greenville, SC since 1975 (called Horizon Records) during his teenage years Berg’s family also ran a regional concert promotion company which promoted artists such as Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Lyle Lovett, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Sam Bush, Gillian Welch, Los Lobos, Wilco, Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Dr. John, Tony Rice, Bela Fleck, and The Band, among many others. During these early years Aaron was never far from sight absorbing from the wings of a dozen different stages a spiraling array of American folk and roots music.
“I met Jimmie Vaughan when I first started playing,” Berg recalls. “I will never forget him leaning down with all those rings and his greased back hair to shake my hand. All he said was ‘play what you want to hear, son.’ I think that could be the best advice anyone has ever given me.” Aaron sights delta blues and Appalachian folk as his initial sources of inspiration. “I think John Lee Hooker is the closest cousin to the music of the future. His music is made almost entirely of soul and improvisation. It is most of all about the raw intention of the singer. Hip Hop is what will be drawn inside next. Blues and Rap have a lot more in common than has been realized.” Despite Berg’s heavy draw from folk and blues as primary influences his background stretches in virtually every direction as does his music.
At age eighteen he moved to Greenwich Village, New York City to attend music school and study bass on scholarship at the New School For Social Research. "My grades in high school were so bad," Berg confesses, "that I couldn't really get into any universities including the state schools. I wanted to go to New York so I found a way. Ultimately, I knew I think that I was looking for something else." Before dropping out of The New School after less than two years he held the coveted position as the lone student of contemporary jazz bass guru Larry Grenadier. “It was a funny thing,” Bergs says. “I met the master himself. The guy we were all trying to emulate and I realized almost instantly that it was not my calling to play that kind of music. He was a virtuoso artist and a beautiful soul but I just knew right away I was not destine to become that type of musician.” Around this time Aaron began to write songs almost by accident. “Originally songwriting was more of an off-handed late night amusement,” Aaron explains, “but somewhere in there it became more organized.” Rebecca Martin, an internationally accredited folk and jazz singer and wife of bassist Larry Grenadier heard many of Aaron’s earliest performances. “Aaron has some of the best phrasing of anyone I know singing songs", claims Martin. "There are lines in every song that just floor me. Aaron is big talent.” Berg’s first album “Songs For Madame X” featured an eclectic line up of Brooklyn friends and former schoolmates.
Although Aaron's interest in performing and singing made its debut in 2007 with 'Songs For Madame X' the initial traces of inspiration begin three years earlier when he landed a gig playing upright bass for bluegrass icon Peter Rowan (known also from The Grateful Dead classic as Panama Red) who was guitarist and leadsinger for bluegrass godfather Bill Monroe in the sixties and bandmate of arists such as Jerry Garcia, Tony Rice, and Sam Bush in the 1970's. “I met Peter Rowan in New York City on the morning of my twentieth birthday at the Washington Square North Hotel. I was sitting in the marble lobby under a giant reproduction of the John Singer Sargeant painting ‘Madame X’ which as fate would have it ended up being the title of my first album. Peter walked in with a silver-banded sombrero, a silk shirt, and a red headed daughter. In terms of being a traveling, singing performer that pretty much sealed the deal.”