Glenn Kaiser Solo

Artist Information

Biography

Glenn Kaiser has been singing the blues—and sometimes soul, R&B or rock—since he was twelve years old.

Glenn has just finished work on a project titled Cardboard Box**, inspired by both his love for cigar-box guitars and his compassion for the homeless in the inner city of Chicago. In Glenn's words, "gritty, simple 20's or 30's street blues... travelers stuff... found-object music, raw and rough." Three songs from this album (The Protest, Repurposed, Live Your Life for a Change) were composed and recorded on Glenn's homemade "cigar box" guitars - one he made himself, the other was given to him. Two songs feature respected blues harmonica player Joe Filisco (Cardboard Box, Poverty Blues).

HISTORY
Growing up in a poor family living and hand-to-mouth in central Wisconsin, Glenn eventually gravitated to Milwaukee’s local music scene where he fronted over a dozen bands, and wrote and performed solo acoustic music-—all before turning nineteen years of age.

With his adolescence plagued by drug and alcohol abuse, Glenn got clean through following Jesus after a life-changing spiritual confrontation around his eighteenth birthday. During this time his music got heavier and in many ways, deeper. His former song writing motif celebrating drugs, sex and other vices gave way to lyrics about spiritual struggle, personal temptation, institutional sin, poverty, exploitation, racism, materialism and other issues that few musicians seemed willing to tackle.

Now, after more than four decades of making original music - twenty-five years of which fronting the hard-rock Resurrection Band - Kaiser is known for his raw, bluesy vocals, fiery guitar playing, bottleneck slide and harmonica work on thirty recordings and innumerable live shows. Glenn and his family have lived in Chicago’s inner city for over thirty years doing mission work with people not unlike he once was. Kaiser has released several acoustic-based CDs between his electric blues and blues/rock albums. His seminal delta blues projects Trimmed and Burnin’ and follow-up Slow Burn (both with harp player/singer Darrell Mansfield) established him as a singular and authentic bluesman.

Three contemporary worship albums, along with the folk-pop Time Will Tell, fill out the acoustic discography. Acoustic cuts also comprise half of Kaiser’s critically acclaimed Ripley County Blues project which was recorded in a log cabin lodge in rural Missouri. The acoustic-based Bound For Glory features his unique arrangements of old hymns and spiritual choruses done mostly in the blues tradition he so loves.

**Proceeds from the sales of Cardboard Box will benefit Cornerstone Community Outreach (CCO), a shelter serving homeless men, women and families. For more information on CCO go to ccolife.org.

Instrumentation

Glenn Kaiser - Harmonica, Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Lap Steel Guitar, cigar box guitars

Discography

Cardboard Box 2011
Bound For Glory 2006
Ripley County Blues 2002
No Greater Love 2002
Time Will Tell 1999
You Made The Difference In Me 1998
Into The Night (Live) 1995
Spontaneous Combustion 1994
All My Days 1993
Slow Burn 1993
Trimmed and Burnin' 1990

Links

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Last.fm
• GKB Press Kit
• Record Label
• Glenn's Blog
• CDs + MP3s

Audio

• Repurposed
  Listen  
• Live Your Life For A Change
  Listen  
• What You Did
  Listen  
• Urban Hobo
  Listen  
• Opportunity Dance
  Listen  
• Crossroads
  Listen  

Lyrics

• Repurposed
• Live Your Life for a Change
• What You Did
• Urban Hobo
• Opportunity Dance
• Crossroads

Video

Laid My Burdens Down

Photo Gallery

Press

• Cardboard Box
  

  ... this is the best album Kaiser's ever done. Shane Speal

• Cardboard Box [+ Show ]
  

  ...Stripping the instrumentation to a minimum, Kaiser offers up a set of songs accompanied only by g......Stripping the instrumentation to a minimum, Kaiser offers up a set of songs accompanied only by guitar and harmonica. The CD’s theme, recognizing the social tragedies of poverty and homelessness, fits the sparse production perfectly.
  
  Kaiser kicks off Cardboard Box with a big 12-string barrage, reminiscent of Barbeque Bob, named “Unemployment Blues”. The emotion is real and the conviction certain when Glenn cries out ”I don’t need your pity, I just need a place to lay my head”. “Loading Dock” marches along in a John Lee Hooker vamp, with Glenn accompanying himself on drums. Kaiser’s superior vocal skills are apparent on “Opportunity Dance”, a song that could easily be classic Bob Seger, were it not for the emotive story about the indignity of living on the streets. Such a personal honest account could only come from first hand experience.
  
  Singer Ami Moss and harp great Joe Filisko make cameo appearances; Moss on “The Protest” and Filisko on “Poverty Blues” and the title track, “Cardboard Box”. Kaiser’s approach, while spartan, is not entirely acoustic. Loud electric guitars drive a couple of the tracks, and the stinging power of the electric is commanding and fierce when Kaiser wields it as a solo instrument. The combination of Filisko’s electrified harmonica and Kaiser’s guitar on “Cardboard Box” are persuasive weapons indeed. If Son House had an electric in 1930, he may have sounded very similar.
  
  The tales of raw life on the streets that are found on Cardboard Box startlingly real and poignant. The CD contains a dozen tracks, each of which serves as reminder of life lived under the radar screen. These are stories of humanity “off the books”.
  
  Glenn Kaiser’s familiarity with this material is obvious, and is borne of his lifelong commitment to the ministry to the homeless and indigent in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.

• Cardboard Box [+ Show ]
  

  "The one thing I appreciated most about the album was that the lyrical content wasn't heavy handed a..."The one thing I appreciated most about the album was that the lyrical content wasn't heavy handed and overly political, but an honest portrayal of the struggle that many of the homeless feel every day as they try to just survive. Cardboard Box is a raw, honest, and beautifully difficult album to listen to, in which Glenn paints a very real picture of what is going on in the homeless community and in his neighborhood in North Chicago and the hope that can exist."
  -Gar Saeger

• Cardboard Box [+ Show ]
  

  After decades of playing first rock and more recently the blues, Glenn Kaiser releases arguably on...
  After decades of playing first rock and more recently the blues, Glenn Kaiser releases arguably one of the most important works of his career, Cardboard Box, dedicated to Chicago's homeless. Surpassing politics surrounding the issue of homelessness, Kaiser looks directly at its people. And what better sound than that of his improvisational, soulful guitar licks to voice the cries of a hurting community? His storytelling brims with both hope ("Opportunity Dance") and despair ("The Protest"), acting as a mouthpiece for the suffering while issuing a charge to God's children, lest we forget, "one day we will answer for the love we did not send." - Kristen Garrett

• Cardboard Box [+ Show ]
  

  [Glenn Kaiser's] new solo project, Cardboard Box, really brings the blues home for Kaiser. Including...[Glenn Kaiser's] new solo project, Cardboard Box, really brings the blues home for Kaiser. Including songs with titles like "Unemployment Blues" and "Urban Hobo," the album is an ode to Chicago's poor and homeless, with bluesy licks and lyrics that help the listener step into the shoes of those who live on the streets. - Mark Moring

• Cardboard Box [+ Show ]
  

  "Glenn Kaiser's acoustic blues is a throw-back kinda blues that is as real as the blues can get. Gl..."Glenn Kaiser's acoustic blues is a throw-back kinda blues that is as real as the blues can get. Glenn's vocals are raw with emotion and blend perfectly with the lyrics and feel of Cardboard Box. With every chord and verse, Glenn let's us know the blues is alive and well."
  - excerpt from on-air play
  
  Cap'n Barney
  aka
  Pat Turlo
  ODD ROCK on WMHB 89.7 FM

• Bound for Glory [+ Show ]
  

  Here's a fine album from 2009 by the Resurrection Band veteran. It kicks off with "God's Not Dead" i...Here's a fine album from 2009 by the Resurrection Band veteran. It kicks off with "God's Not Dead" in true Kaiser toe-tapping blues style with Glenn and band adding a personal slant on the children's classic with some custom slide. Kaiser is joined at numerous points throughout the album by bassist Roy Montroy, drummer Ed Bialech amongst some others, most notably his ever supportive wife Wendi. The great thing is that even when Kaiser's only backing is his trusty guitar, songs like "I've Been Redeemed", "There Is No One" and the powerful "At The Cross" are still delightful pieces in stripped back state, as honest and open as can be. The soulful vocals are trademark Kaiser, with that gravely, emotive tone. "Go Tell It On The Mountain" is perhaps the greatest track as Wendi assists on a smouldering version the old folk hymn. Having seen Glenn perform live in Ireland a number of years ago it was the man's charisma that first appealed and certainly this album overflows with personality and passionate faith.

• Slow Burn [+ Show ]
  

  "If I hadn't had the production input of my buddies, I woulda had us record this on a porch." Glenn ..."If I hadn't had the production input of my buddies, I woulda had us record this on a porch." Glenn Kaiser's words go a long way to summing up the feel of 'Slow Burn', his second project with Darrell Mansfield after the successful 'Trimmed And Burnin". This is raw, steel string, message blues, produced with precisely the right amount of restraint by Tom Cameron to ensure that it never suffocates under the weight of production perfectionism, nor, however, does it ever fray uncomfortably at the edges. A showcase for two of the best blues artists in the industry, 'Slow Burn' is a gem. Both men possess that angst-soaked gritty vocal that can only sing blues, both play (Kaiser guitar, Mansfield harmonica) with refined virtuosity, tailoring their immense talent to suit the genre, and the result is outstanding. Seventeen tracks, all but three penned by Glenn Kaiser, produced, arranged and performed with a depth and variety that kept me coming back for more. Don't expect, however, the sort of gut-wrenching lyrics Kaiser pens for Rez for they are not to be found here. The songwriting is geared to delivering its message with a punch, with only a smattering of more contemplative tracks, such as the beautiful "Long Way From My Home" and the title track, for which the vocals and guitar were, quite amazingly, recorded in one take. I was particularly impressed with the excellent arrangement of "This Little Light", the passionate opener "Cover Me" and the superlative "Ps 99" - never has a Psalm been fitted so well to a guitar. This is music that communicates, music that conveys God better than any I have yet heard - I was struck and inspired by the messages, blown away by the sheer talent and held fast by the depth of interpretation and production. Don't miss out.

• All My Days [+ Show ]
  

  It's heartening to note that more and more contemporary artists are recognising that unless they are...It's heartening to note that more and more contemporary artists are recognising that unless they are worshippers of God all their talent and music is as so much empty noise. This truth has clearly been known to Rez's beloved and profoundly gifted frontman for these songs, written over 20 years for personal devotion and congregational worship with Jesus People USA, shine with a heart in love with the healer of hearts and the saver of souls. This is a long way from the formulaic muzak that parts of the charismatic church now tragically accept as praise and worship. Neither is it some artificially conceived Metal praise album full of full throttle axe solos and where power chords are the only power the album's performers seem to recognise. This is a wistful, tender hearted album, with much of the playing acoustic. Even much of the blues edge of Glenn's magnificent voice is mellowed to suit the mood of meditative worship. What Rez's mosh head followers will make of an exquisite track like "In The Ocean Of His Love" where cellos weave in and out of the exquisite melody of "Surender" and "Behold The Lamb Of God" or where Glenn is joined by a whole choir of worshippers, I know not. I can but hope that rather than wrangling about this or that style of music, more Christians will catch the heart of Christ, and when listening to praise and worship albums that means catching the heart of the worshipper singing his songs onto tape. I suppose the test of any worship album for the reviewer is does it make him want to put down his pen, step back from his 'nice guitar solo on this track' book of clichés and bring all his thoughts to the throne room of the Lord of all. This does.

• Glenn Kaiser Band - Carolina Moon [+ Show ]
  

  Similar bluesy songsters would be Kenny Wayne Shepherd or B.B. King, if he cranked up the volume and...Similar bluesy songsters would be Kenny Wayne Shepherd or B.B. King, if he cranked up the volume and distortion. Kaiser's gravelly vocals and impassioned delivery on guitar make for a moving experience, yet all the while there is a message of hope intertwined with the pain. 
  

Setlist

A COMMON GLENN SOLO SETLIST, AS OF NOV. 2010

1. You Got To Move (TB/SB)
2. Great Change (TB/SB)
3. Long Way From My Home (TB/SB)
4. I Been Redeemed (BFG)
5. If I Leave This World Tomorrow (SC, GKBL)
6. Crossroads (GKBL)
7. Since I Laid My Burdens Down (BFG)
8. Ripley Co. Blues (RCB)
9. Witness Cloud (TB/SB)
10. Right On Time (REZ... when Wendi comes along with me)
11. The House is on Fire (REZ... when Wendi comes along with me)
12. Memory (TWT)
13. What You Did (TB/SB)
14. I'll Fly Away (BFG)
15. Doxology (BFG)


A COMMON GLENN/GKB CHURCH SET, AS OF AUTUMN 2009

1. Wings of the Wind (TDYC)
2. God in Sky Above (NGL)
3. Surrender (AMD)
4. Behold the Lamb of God (AMD)
5. You Are The Source (AMD)
6. Ever Closer (AMD)
7. Live in Me (Tommy Ogle) or All For Jesus (Robin Mark)
8. Fearfully, Wondrously Made (TDYC)
9. I'll Fly Away (BFG)

Basic Requirements

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