Steeped in the rich tradition of Americana artists before him like Steve Earle, Johnny Cash and Dave Alvin, Randy Burk creates music that is at once exciting and familiar, honest and soulful, fearless and introspective.
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Wrought with Midwestern sensibility and a blue-collar work ethic, Burks affinity for songs about love, life and pain can be traced to his small-town Iowa roots where his father worked as a steelworker and his mother as a nurse. Born and raised in Atlantic, Iowa, Burk spent much of his youth singing in the church and listening to his fathers collection of Elvis Presley 8-tracks. Those experiences would prove to have a profound effect on his life.
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I dont ever remember not wanting to sing, the 32-year-old Burk admits. The church is where I started loving music, but when I was about eighth years old my dad played Elvis version of Lawdy Miss Clawdy and when I heard that mix of gospel, country and rockabilly, that was the moment I realized what I wanted to do with my life.
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After graduating from high school, Burk moved to Springfield, Mo. to work for his fathers steel company as a laborer. For the next six years, he would frame steel buildings by day and build the foundation for his music career by night toiling in bars and roadhouses with country and rock bands. In between burning both ends of the candle, he would write songs and practice his guitar playing.
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Though Burk was building a grassroots following in the Midwest, he knew he had more to give and more to learn. A chance meeting in 1997 with Jimmy Tittle, Johnny Cashs son-in-law who toured and recorded with Merle Haggard and The Man in Black, would soon put him on the fast track. Tittle, an award-winning singer-songwriter, took the young Iowa native under his wing and encouraged him to move to Nashville. Though Burk kept his day job in Springfield, he would drive to Nashville during the weekends for the next year to record an album with Tittle and frequent open jams at legendary honky tonks.
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I spent some time in Nashville and learned a lot, recalls Burk. It was Jimmy who helped me find myself as an artist. Thats when the art of this business became clear to me.
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In 1998, Burk returned to Springfield with a renewed sense of purpose to develop his own voice while working as a singer-songwriter. During the next two years he found it while playing shows between New York City and Reno, opening for the likes of Cash, BR549 and Brian White.
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In 2000, a homecoming gig in Atlantic produced yet another important chance meeting for Burk when he met pianist and former schoolmate Jared Hall. The bond between the two musicians was instantaneous and their mutual affair with roots music proved to be the launching pad for Randy Burk and the Prisoners in 2001.
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Touring with the kind of urgency youd find at a jailbreak, Burk and the Prisoners quickly established a loyal following while playing more than 125 Midwest shows that year, sharing stages with the Bastards Sons of Johnny Cash, Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys, Rambler 454 and The Clumsy Lovers. In 2002, they reached even more fans, with their seven-song EP that included five originals and two Tittle tunes.
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In 2004, Burk left his fathers company and moved to Des Moines, Iowa, where the band is now based. In March of that year, the group recorded its debut full-length album Down To This during a two-week period at Proxy Studios in California. Longtime friend and Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash leader Mark Stuart produced the album, which includes melodic ballads of heartbreak, spiritual mountain songs and rip-roaring rockers.
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This record is a good reflection of who I am, said Burk. It touches on a lot of different subjects and styles, everything that defines me. Im really proud of it.
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So, too, is Stuart. I was flattered to work with them, he said. They turned it into a party, but were committed to the songs.
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Stuart also praised Burks songwriting and singing, comparing it to the early work of artists like Earle, Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp. He reminds me of them because his honest delivery sells the song, he said. The integrity and the passion comes through. Hes the real deal.
