NANTUCKET: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, baby, practice. Or just follow folk music sensation Tim Eriksen, who debuted on that hallowed New York stage as a featured soloist in 2008. His performance credits also include an appearance at the 2004 Academy Awards, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center and the Fox Theater. His musical interpretations have been included in NPR’s venerable A Prairie Home Companion and the Oscar-winning film Cold Mountain. Eriksen will add to this already impressive list of distinguished appearances when he appears live in concert at the Nantucket Historical Association’s Whaling Museum on Saturday, September 3 at 7pm.
Widely regarded as the "best ballad singer of his generation" (BBC Radio), Tim Eriksen combines haunting vocals with arrangements for fiddle, banjo, guitar, and banjo sexto to present his unique take on American music from New England and the South. Eriksen’s show at the Whaling Museum is billed as “Hardcore Americana,” a descriptor that includes genres such as New England murder ballads, “Shape-Note” 
gospel, traditional Southern Appalachian and Irish folk songs, as well as haunting original pieces that will leave you spell-bound. His latest CD, entitled Soul of the January Hills features fourteen of Eriksen’s original works and has been described as “a powerful, compelling and incredibly personal album that will raise goose bumps all over your body.” Eriksen will have copies of the CD for sale at the concert on September 3.
With original songs like “Am I Born to Die?” and “I Wish My Baby Was Born,” Eriksen’s performances stay with the listener long after the sound has softened and the lights have darkened. And with a forty-six-foot whale skeleton as a backdrop in the intimate setting of the museum, there is no more perfect setting in which to catch this critically acclaimed performance.
Tim Eriksen live in concert at the Whaling Museum, 13 Broad Street, on Saturday, September 3. Doors open for this memorable night of music at 6:30pm and the concert begins at 7. Tickets are $10 for NHA members and $20 for non-members. Tickets may be purchased at the door or call Melissa Kershaw at 508-228-1894, ext. 117, for advance sales.
