Susan Herndon
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Susan Herndon

Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States | SELF

Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States | SELF
Band Americana Singer/Songwriter

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This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

Press


"About the new album, All Fall Down"

"Susan Herndon has just released the best music of her life with "All Fall Down." Recorded in Austin with a great cast of musicians, it was produced by Texas legends Lloyd Maines and Bob Livingston. From the opening song, "Land Of The Living" this set puts Susan in the forefront of roots oriented female artists, and actually much of it sets her apart from her peers. She is as honest as any Okie girl I know, a cool jazz singer sometimes and a rootsy red dirt singer as well." - Greg Johnson, Blue Door Digest, 2 November 2010


"About the new album, All Fall Down"

"Susan Herndon has just released the best music of her life with "All Fall Down." Recorded in Austin with a great cast of musicians, it was produced by Texas legends Lloyd Maines and Bob Livingston. From the opening song, "Land Of The Living" this set puts Susan in the forefront of roots oriented female artists, and actually much of it sets her apart from her peers. She is as honest as any Okie girl I know, a cool jazz singer sometimes and a rootsy red dirt singer as well." - Greg Johnson, Blue Door Digest, 2 November 2010


"John Wooley"

“Singing French folk songs one night and performing with Red Dirt musicians the next, Tulsa’s Herndon is a versatile and engaging performer whose heart and soul put her in the latter camp, as does original music like ‘Here in the Heartland’, ‘Oklahoma Waters’, and ‘Highway 33 (Home)’, the latter telling the story of the encroachment of the highway on her grandmother’s house, just west of the red-dirt banks of the Cimarron River.”
- Oklahoma Magazine, December 2007


"Gary Hizer"

“Herndon is an elegant and engaging storyteller, widely regarded as one of the best songstresses in Green Country. As impressive as she is with her band, however, her lyrical and narrative strengths are highlighted even more when it’s just her voice and a guitar…while you can expect Herndon to express her folky side with the acoustic performance, don’t think her blues and rock voices won’t make a visit--even if they do come out in a slightly more restrained manner. Just behind her poetic delivery and occasionally French lyrics lies a hint of Chrissie Hynde: a bewitching blend of innocence and attitude.”
- Urban Tulsa Weekly, 3 October, 2007


"Gary Hizer"

“Herndon is an elegant and engaging storyteller, widely regarded as one of the best songstresses in Green Country. As impressive as she is with her band, however, her lyrical and narrative strengths are highlighted even more when it’s just her voice and a guitar…while you can expect Herndon to express her folky side with the acoustic performance, don’t think her blues and rock voices won’t make a visit--even if they do come out in a slightly more restrained manner. Just behind her poetic delivery and occasionally French lyrics lies a hint of Chrissie Hynde: a bewitching blend of innocence and attitude.”
- Urban Tulsa Weekly, 3 October, 2007


"SPOT Music Award nominee for Best Singer-Songwriter"

“Singer/songwriter Susan Herndon’s latest disc includes music that ranges from French ballads to folksy, working-class manifestos that cut close to the bone. Her folky vocals layer a girlish irony atop lyrical storytelling on her thought-provoking ‘1,000 PIES’ album.”
- Tulsa World, September, 2007


"Jeff Jeffries"

"Folk-Fusion songstress Susan Herndon is perhaps one of the most amazing women in Oklahoma music today. This Tulsa troubadour sings about the vivacity of life in a variety of languages, and like Okie legend Tom Skinner says, 'She can do things wiith a guitar I can't even comprehend.'"
- The Current, January, 2007


"SPOT Music Award nominee for Best Singer-Songwriter"

“Singer/songwriter Susan Herndon’s latest disc includes music that ranges from French ballads to folksy, working-class manifestos that cut close to the bone. Her folky vocals layer a girlish irony atop lyrical storytelling on her thought-provoking ‘1,000 PIES’ album.”
- Tulsa World, September, 2007


Discography

All Fall Down (album 2010)
1,000 PIES (album, 2007)
PECCADILLOS (2-disc album, 2005)
IN THE ATTIC (album, 2003)
QUIET CAVE (album, 2000)

Photos

Bio

Said to be "something of a trailblazer, unfettered by labels or boundaries," Susan Herndon simply considers herself an existentialist drawing from life experience and observation in order to write. Her last album, 1,000 Pies, "contains tunes ranging from sweet acoustic ballads to straight up country, rock and roll, and even a little red dirt jazz-- skipping with ease between genres and showing hints of her inner bohemian." Her latest album, All Fall Down, produced by Lloyd Maines is a collection of songs that includes country, pop, blues, rock, reggae, bluegrass, jug-band, a ballad, a poetry-ramble, and a French song. (With always a French song thrown-in, car elle parle un petit peu de francais aussi...!) The unifying thread being, "quite simply, she has one of the sweetest and most comforting female voices... of course it doesn't hurt that she's also a gifted songwriter."

Born in St. Louis, but completely Okie bred-- that is, until moving to France, Susan began performing there, busking in the streets, then playing regularly with a group of fellow-vagabonds in Auvergne, in Provence, and in the Dordogne and then on into Greece. These past several years have also seen her gigging relentlessly from Okemnukov, Ukraine to Okemah, Oklahoma, and playing and touring regularly in venues from Tennessee and Arkansas to Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas and into New Mexico, Colorado, Texas and Florida and out to California, Oregon, and Washington State.

Her album credits are a who's who of some of Oklahoma's best musicians, and her latest album, of Austin's most outstanding. But Susan Herndon is best experienced live-- and she loves a live show, maintaining a commitment to the fun, camaraderie, and love through the mystery and beauty and power of song-- playing solo, or just as often, surrounding herself with a band of great and unique musicians.

"You can call her music singer-songwriter music, Red Dirt music, folk music. Just about the only thing you can't call it is easy listening... she has both a facility for lyrics that mean something, and remains fiercly independent." Whatever the descriptions or comparisons, "Herndon might be described as eclectic or versatile, but never predictable-- and always entertaining."