Biography
About Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy’s release of this fourth recording Curious Thing sends out to his listeners the highly anticipated follow up to his release Picture Gallery Blues.
The new release, for Cormac, provides a very fine recording, featuring outstanding studio musicians. Curious Thing is the product of a mature writer, musician (with his own work on guitar & harmonica), performer, humorist, and family man. No quality is lost on this album and it is clear that the art comes from the life of a man who has turned a kind heart and a keen eye towards the life around him, and shared it with us all through talents seasoned by fan pleasing shows around the country.
McCarthy’s has also recently re-release his first self-titled, self distributed recording which contains so many of the gems that are often requested by Cormac’s loyal New England fans. The CD, Cormac McCarthy is often referred by a stunning signature ballad, Friend of the Family.
While Cormac is not, as often queried, the alter ego of the New York Times Best Selling Author ("All the pretty horses, " Blood Meridian", etc.,) his background in literature, his rural roots, and his knack for penning a great line would make some comparisons easy to draw, and since we’ve never heard tell of whether or not the Kentucky born novelist can sing, we’ll have to leave the contest open.
Cormac McCarthy made his singing debut on WKRC Radio in Cincinnati, as a three-year old belting out "Davey Crockett" on his father’s radio show. He returned to public performance some twenty years later, singing his own compositions with a bit more experience in his voice.
Born in Ohio, but rooted in rural New England since the age of ten, Cormac grew up in towns where the economies teetered on marginal sustenance from logging, and paper and woolen mills. His elementary school had the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades in the same room. Though the area was small, his musical influences were not: his father’s love for jazz and classical music introduced Cormac to everything form Errol Garner to Beethoven.
It wasn’t until his sister made a visit home from college, bringing an armful of recordings of Dylan, Baez, and Eric Anderson, that things clicked musically for McCarthy: he traded his clarinet for a Western Auto guitar, purchasing the Black Diamond strings across the street at the barber shop.
In his own college years, Cormac studied literature and music and took a great liking to the works of James Joyce and Mississippi John Hurt. He spent most of his time reading, playing guitar, and working in the local mills to pay for school. College roommate, Bill Morrissey, helped encourage Cormac to make his music more public, and a stint of shared local gigs and storytelling marathons ensued. A trip west followed college, as did an array of different jobs including construction worker, truck driver, street singer, and a season as a migrant worker. Through his music Cormac has succeeded in bringing his lyrical magic to some of these rougher edges of life.
Cormac was nominated for both Outstanding Folk/Acoustic Act, and Outstanding Folk/ Acoustic Album by the Boston Music Awards. Cormac’s album, Troubled Sleep helped to kick off the Green Linnet Records' prestigious singer-songwriter Redbird Series devoted to the most creative of this generations acoustic musicians and songwriters. Troubled Sleep won high praise and some overseas attention in the UK. Cormac was honored to be one of the artists asked to perform in Boston’s WUMB Folk Radio 10th Anniversary Celebration. He has been invited 3 times to the stage of the Newport Folk Festival, and twice to appear on NPR’s "Mountain Stage" Live radio show. A fan favorite and regular at the Hartland Folk Festival, and a frequent special guest to many of the performances by the most popular musician’s of the genre. His talents as an on stage humorist have been well remarked upon over recent years, and gave cause to have him invited to headline for the Night of Humor and Songwriters in Boston’s Somerville Theater. Cormac is regarded by fellow musicians and fans alike as one of New England’s finest songwriters. He writes and sings of a heartfelt, sometimes funny, sometimes desperate, sometimes glorious world of common people, struggles, hope, relationships, madness, and love. He sings the poetry of real life with a silky baritone voice and just enough grit.
Picture Gallery Blues has been call called a masterpiece. The new release of Curious Thing is also a masterwork to be shared with all who have come to know and treasure Cormac’s songwriting and delivery.
Presently, Cormac, his wife Sammie Haynes, and their son, Davis, live in a small town in southern Maine; adjacent to the lively Seacoast Arts Scene centered around Portsmouth, NH.
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