American singer-songwriter
Musical artist
Tim Eriksen is an American musician, musicologist, and professor. He is the leader of the band Cordelia's Dad, a solo artist, and was a performer and consultant for the award-winning soundtrack of the film Cold Mountain.[1][2][3]
Cordelia's Dad
Cordelia's Dad combines old-time music and punk rock influences to create a unique sound. The Village Voice describes the band as "semi-reformed punks turned shape-note singers...recently gone entirely acoustic, but buzzing with metaphorical electricity". The band has released nine full-length albums, played festivals such as The Newport Folk Festival, and toured with notable bands Nirvana, Uncle Tupelo, and Weezer.[4]
Musicologist
Eriksen successfully defended his PhD in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University in May 2015, having received an M.A. in the same discipline from Wesleyan in 1993, and has served as a visiting music professor at Dartmouth College, Amherst College, Hampshire College and the University of Minnesota.[5] He has also taught in Poland and the Czech Republic.[1] Additionally, Eriksen is a collector of variations of folk songs, and has conducted extensive research on traditional Yugoslavian music.[2][6] Eriksen shared his extensive knowledge of folk music while a consultant for the soundtrack of the film Cold Mountain.[1][2] In 2011, Eriksen taught a class on the history of the Sacred Harp at Smith College.[7]
Solo artist
Eriksen performed on the Cold Mountain soundtrack, singing with Riley Baugus on traditional songs such as "I Wish My Baby Was Born" and "The Cuckoo".[8] He was part of The Great High Mountain Tour, which celebrated the traditional music of Cold Mountain and O Brother, Where Art Thou?[9]
T-Bone Burnett, the producer of the Cold Mountain soundtrack, had Eriksen teach performers the complex style of Sacred Harp singing.[10]
Eriksen has also released seven solo albums: Tim Eriksen; Every Sound Below; Northern Roots Live In Namest; Soul Of The January Hills; Star in the East; Banjo, Fiddle And Voice; and Josh Billings Voyage or, Cosmopolite on the Cotton Road. The Pop Matters review of Every Sound Below describes it as a "stunning mixture of traditional hymns, songs from the American Civil War, and Eriksen's own compositions".[8]
The Sacred Harp documentary Awake, My Soul's accompanying soundtrack Help Me to Sing: Songs of the Sacred Harp features a song by Eriksen and one by Cordelia's Dad. Paste Magazine describes Eriksen's performance of Sacred Harp songs at an Atlanta concert as "stand-out" and said Eriksen "was best at adapting the raw power of Sacred Harp to his own arrangements."[1]
Eriksen has also been a guest on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, where he performed the traditional folk song "O, Death" on October 29, 2005.[11] He also played Bosnian Pop music with the band Zabe I Babe.[10] In 2018, his arrangement, including an original tune, of the song "I Wish the Wars Were All Over" was recorded by Joan Baez on her album Whistle Down the Wind.
