Eric Andersen spent most of his life roaming Beat Avenue. It isn’t a street that led to fame and fortune – too full of left turns, both deliberate and involuntary – but it let him follow his muse and develop a unique songwriting style that combines the poetic and the plainspoken, the throb of an open heart and the cynical second glance of the betrayed lover, the perpetual motion of a soul on fire. It’s been a long journey, and he hasn’t stopped moving yet.

In the four decades since Eric was discovered by Tom Paxton in a San Francisco coffeehouse and went to New York’s Greenwich Village to join the singer-songwriter scene of the early Sixties, he has become a special talent, an international Grand Master in meaningful, personalized contemporary songwriting. The late Robert Shelton of the New York Times presciently described one of his early compositions as “typical of the new language and poetic patterns of what will one day be called ‘an Eric Andersen song’.”

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1943, Eric grew up in Buffalo, New York, where he taught himself to play guitar and piano. In his teens, he formed folk groups to perform political songs of Woody Guthrie and The Weavers. His immersion in writings of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and the Beat Generation writers and poets Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Gregory Corso spurred him into hitchhiking to the West Coast in 1963 to meet his idols and inspirations. The “no rules” outlook and rootless freedom of the Beats have remained Eric’s inspirations, in his worldwandering lifestyle and his poetic, sensual songs, with their motifs of troubled love, lost innocence, and the flow of travel and time.

Eric has released a steady stream of acclaimed CDs on Appleseed and has had a touring schedule that includes the US, Canada, Japan, France, the Netherlands, and Norway. He’s performed at a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame tribute to Phil Ochs and at a celebration of Joni Mitchell in Central Park, appeared on cable TV, and was the subject of radio specials.

Eric presents a dark and haunting blend of folk, blues, jazz, and other roots music. Learn more about the man and his music at www.ericandersen.com, and check out his workshop, the Art of the Singer/Songwriter, 2 PM Sunday, at The Hotel Arizona.

Tucson’s own Harvey Brooks joins Eric for a few songs Sunday night.