Elijah Wald

Elijah Wald has been performing for almost fifty years in a wide variety of styles, from blues, ragtime, swing, country, and cowboy songs to classic Swahili pop, the Bahamian guitar style of Joseph Spence, and Mexican corridos. Starting out as a busker, he has toured all over the United States and much of the rest of the world, playing in coffeehouses, bars, nightclubs, colleges, concert halls,  and on festival stages from New Orleans to Chicago, Tokyo, Salzburg, and Sydney.

Elijah’s mentors include Dave Van Ronk, with whom he performed, recorded, and wrote Dave’s memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street (which inspired the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis); Howard Armstrong, the legendary Black string band master, with whom he toured for five years; and Jean-Bosco Mwenda, the father of Congolese acoustic guitar. He won a 2002 Grammy (admittedly for best liner notes, which in Van Ronk’s immortal words “is kind of like getting the Nobel Prize in fingerpainting”), filmed a highly-regarded instructional video on the guitar style of the Bahamian wizard Joseph Spence, and his shows blend music and stories from a wide range of people and places in a compellingly personal style.

“a brilliant fingerpicker and distinctive singer” — The Boston Globe

“exuberant and educational” — The Times of India

“Great songs, sporty picking, and some of the prettiest shirts on God’s green earth.” — Dave Van Ronk