Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
Burns returns: Bob Burns, whose distinct rootsy vocals once defined the band Big in Iowa, returns to the performing scene as a solo artist playing Tuesday at Sudsy Malone's, Corryville. Also on the bill: Swarthy, Carrie Sample and Dusty Bryant.
Big In Iowa went on hiatus last year when Burns wanted some time off. Then the story gets a little ugly. When the dust settled the band reformed earlier this year without Burns. The only original member of the outfit is bass player Ken "Mr. K" Glidewell, who claimed a legal right to the band name. The reconfigured Big in Iowa plays Wednesday at the Knotty Pine, Cheviot.
Burns will pursue a solo career. - Rick Bird - Cincinnati Post
Bob Burns still sounds like Van Morrison down to the warble emanating from his scarred and broken soul.
– Stanton Swihart
- All Music Guide
Bob Burns' voice has just the right timbre to evoke memories of Van the Man, John Fogerty and even Jagger occasionally. It's a great rock voice, as in great, not just ok, great! It's full of shades of the real soul-men that the aforementioned Brits. studied in the first place. He's not bad at re-writing in the classic style either. – Shaun Belcher
- Flying Shoes UK
Burns’ vocals often remind of Van Morrison’s, and musical comparisons come by way of The Byrds, Credence Clearwater Revival and roots rock darlings The Backsliders. – David J. Klug
- Blue Suede News
Discography
I don't have any CD's under my belt as a solo artist, but I have 5 CD's with my former band Big In Iowa. We were signed to Blue Rose Records and received international airplay. You can hear samples from the Big In Iowa days at:
http://bigbobburns.com/biginiowa/listen.html
and you can hear some acoustic demo's of my new songs here at Sonic Bids.
To see all Big In Iowa albums released, go to:
http://www.bigbobburns.com/biginiowa/discography.html
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Bob Burns is the former lead singer and songwriter for the internationally renowned band “Big In Iowa”. While Big In Iowa are still together with Ken Glidewell as the only original member left, Bob split ways with the band in February of 2002 due to irreconcilable differences. Bob is currently taking his time writing songs and awaiting his first-born child. His next project will be a Not Lame Records tribute to Buffalo Springfield in 2005. Bob is currently putting a band together to complete his debut solo record.
The following is the old BIO for Big In Iowa:
In the late 20th-century world of 15-minute fame and instant gratification, almost anyone with a modicum of talent, ambition, or savvy could be big on MTV or in Hollywood. But to be Big in Iowa was something altogether special. In particular it specifies that you were among the elite roots rock bands in a land teeming with good ones, a quartet for which critical comparisons to such rock icons as the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Van Morrison, and John Fogerty (all to whom Big in Iowa paid sonic homage) became the rule rather than the exception - and for which such allusions, loaded as they seem, were largely apropos.
The Big in Iowa phenomenon was initially foretold in the late '50s by a hot young rock & roll guitarist named Dick Burns, leader of the Do's and Don'ts, a combo that had recorded a number of strong 45 records, earning it a growing reputation and sizeable regional following. After watching the band tear through a performance during an opening slot for him, so impressed was Jerry Lee Lewis by Burns' skills on the six-string that he immediately offered him a spot in his touring group. The young guitarist, however, turned "Killer" down out-of-hand, providing the sensible rationale that the Do's and Don'ts were "big in Iowa." A couple generations later, singer/songwriter and acoustic guitarist Bob Burns made good on his uncle's optimistic comment, turning out some of the finest, most soulful American country-rock of the '90s and into the new century as one member in Cincinnati's Big in Iowa.
The band had its inauspicious beginnings in mid-1995, at a pub in Hamilton, OH. Burns and bass player Ken Glidewell each matriculated at a weekly open jam night, the former with the band (Universoul) he had formed while at Miami (Ohio) University, the latter with popular local alternative cover band Crawdaddy. The two musicians instantly struck up a friendship, and as soon as their respective combos faltered, they began holding songwriting sessions every Wednesday, which soon led them to put together the first lineup of Big in Iowa, featuring lead player Rick House from local band the Used Toys and filled out by keyboardist Dusty Bryant and drummer Jamie O'Keefe. By the end of the year the band was collecting local gigs and working on its first, eponymous album. Though strictly a bar band outing by the standards set on the band's later albums, Big in Iowa, self-released in 1996, was quite promising and received considerable local coverage, even landing on a handful of year-end lists and attracting some major-label attention. On the back of the record and a growing reputation as a live band, Big in Iowa was awarded their first Cammy (Cincinnati's version of Grammy Awards) as Roots Rock Band of the Year in 1997, a trophy they would own over the next several years. By the beginning of 1998, Bryant had left the band and O'Keefe was replaced by Jeff Wilson, thereby formulating the core quartet, which proceeded to prepare its second album for release. Twisted was a substantial improvement on the preceding effort. In addition to standing as Big in Iowa's first mature work, it also began its long-term association with Germany's Blue Rose Records. In addition to its Group Cammy, Twisted also helped to earn individual honors for Burns (Best Vocalist) and House (Best Instrumentalist), as well as new fans such as Mojo Nixon and an appearance at the 1999 South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, TX. The band contributed a version of "Cinnamon Girl" to the Neil Young tribute album This Note's for You, and then set about working on its third studio album, Bangin' 'n' Knockin', which appeared in Europe at the tail-end of 1999. As outstanding a progression from Twisted as that album was from Big in Iowa, Bangin' provided the band with its most extensive praise yet, including notices in Bucket Full of Brains, No Depression, and Amplifier magazines; as well as its first opportunity to tour Europe (Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, United Kingdom, Switzerland) at the beginning of 2000, and jaunts through the Midwest and New England. Such was the band's reputation that it also began landing opening slots for such lauded peers as Dave Alvin, Dan Baird, the BoDeans, the Bottle Rockets, Cheap Trick, Alejandro Escovedo, Bob Mould, Drivin' N' Cryin', and Jerry Jeff Walker, among others.
After the limited appearance of the live 4 Guys in a Trabi - which
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