Breaking Artist: Blitzen Trapper

Who: Six nature-loving mountain men from Portland, Oregon, who play roots folk with a contemporary twist.

Sounds Like: Sunbaked lyrics about mountains and rivers merged with ramshackle guitar grooves and cheap keyboards.

Three Things You Should Know:
1. The band got their big break when the Hold Steady asked Blitzen to open for them in May.
2. Music runs in frontman Eric Earley's family. His grandfather was a traveling harmonica virtuoso from the Ozarks. "Family reunions were all about banjos and bluegrass," Earley recalls.
3. Earley recorded most of the band's third record, Wild Mountain Nation, himself in a makeshift studio that used to be a telegraph station using vintage Casios, an old piano and a four-track recorder.

Get It: They're always available on their official Web page.

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Song Stories

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry | 1984

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.

More Song Stories entries »

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