Graham Lindsey

Wisconsin singer/songwriter Graham Lindsey debuted in 2003 with Famous Anonymous Wilderness, an album full of alt-folk-country tunes, strikingly poetic lyrics and overt Dylanisms that garnered comparisons to such similarly time-transcendent artists as Gillian Welch and Richard Buckner (though Lindsey takes a more raw and intense approach to his idiom than those artists). Lindsey's music career actually began as a child, when he was a member of kiddie punkers Old Skull. After the dissolution of that group — and as he hit his teen years — Lindsey became interested in acoustic music (particularly the burgeoning anti-folk movement) and started playing local gigs in Madison, WI. After that period, he dropped music altogether for four years. His creative resurgence came during a period of self-imposed isolation in rural Nebraska; there, infused with the influence of early Dylan, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and the '60s folk revival, he woodshedded out the tunes that would comprise his debut. Famous Anonymous Wilderness seems to at once distill ancient, knee-trembling folk and "alt" otherness, with a few tracks stepping in alt-country directions.