Bart Budwig is in some ways an outlaw country revivalist. With his roots planted deep in the Idaho Palouse, he’s been able to achieve a sound that takes the edge of a Waylon or a Willie and pairs it with the tenderness and authenticity that we’ve come to expect (demand?) from our singer-songwriters here in the Northwest.
Though The Moon and Other Things is only Bart’s second full-length album, he’s been making music consistently since 2004. He’s basically got a compendium of EPs, as well a album of covers entitled Jalapeno Business that he still updates on soundcloud (his cover of Neil Young’s Harvest Moon makes me swoon).
Bart currently resides backstage at the oldest operating theatre in Oregon. He helps run the OK Theatre in Enterprise, hosting musicians, serving as an audio engineer, and, in his ‘off’ time, touring the northwest. And if all of this sounds too good to be true, it’s also worth mentioning that Bart is consistently and relentlessly the nicest man in the room. He’s also got the best beard.
Bart will be at the Columbia City Theater on June 5th, and here you can hear the first single from the new album, Damn Good Start.
“How to ease a gambler’s heart
Let him win is a damn good start
A damn good start
How to cure a cautious heart
Give it all for nothing is a damn good start
A damn good start”
JACK FEHRENBACHER | KXSU Reporter