John Eddie

On the roller coaster of his career so far, John Eddie has had enough big breaks, hard luck, new beginnings, false starts, serious adventure and big fun to inspire a boxed set's worth of country songs. He's had the sort of life - often hard-scrabble, occasionally charmed -- that other artists only imagine, or have someone else write about for them. John has managed to document a lot of this on Who The Hell Is John Eddie?, his debut disc for Lost Highway, along with details of assorted dreams, wishes, romances, and regrets. He really has spent endless days and nights on the road, playing the "shit-hole bars" he so hilariously and accurately recalls. And he's endured the heckling of alcohol-fueled patrons wanting to hear Skynyrd and Petty and demanding to know, Who The Hell Is John Eddie?. The funny thing is, his career first took at a time when everybody, in the music biz at least, wanted to know who the hell John Eddie was. It was the mid-eighties and the Virginia native, who'd recently relocated to New Jersey, was playing a showcase club in Manhattan called Trax. A busload of supporters had come to cheer him on. A few A&R guys caught the show, in which John wowed everyone in the house. By the next morning he found himself on the brink of an intense major-label bidding war that soon attracted the interest of the press as well as the industry. It didn't hurt that Bruce Springsteen, was, and still is, a fan and would sometimes surprise John by hopping onstage during his weekly gig at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ. Though lots of comparisons to the Boss were made, especially after John signed a two-album deal with CBS/Sony, John's approach was always more Memphis than Asbury Park. He had a lot of country in him, plus elements of soul music, folk, and rockabilly.