Aaron Burdett grew up in Saluda, a small town in western North Carolina. As a child, Aaron discovered folk and rock artists John Hiatt, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, The Beatles, The Band, and Rickie Lee Jones on vinyl records in his parents’ living room in the mountains of North Carolina. As a young guitarist and songwriter, he was drawn to powerful storytellers of the time like David Wilcox and Tracy Chapman and John Gorka.
In his late teens, he discovered singer-songwriter John Prine on a cassette tape found in a workshop drawer filled with rusty sixteen penny nails on a Wyoming ranch. He re-discovered the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on that same trip in a second-hand store in Riverton, Wyoming.
In his 20s, he was introduced to Doc Watson when he heard him play in the living room of an old farmhouse near Boone, North Carolina. That experience led him to artists like Norman Blake, Tony Rice, David Grier, Tim O’Brien, Darrell Scott, and Gillian Welch.
Burdett’s music draws heavily on both the traditions of Appalachian folk music as well as nationally known songwriters, including Americana, country, blues, bluegrass, and folk. His music gives voice to the small rural areas of the Blue Ridge Mountains while also speaking to the working men and women throughout the United States.
Aaron Burdett has won various awards, including Our State Magazine’s Carolina Songs Competition in 2012 with “Going Home to Carolina”; third place bluegrass song in Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest in 2013 with “Magpie”; and the grand prize in 2018 in the folk category of the USA Songwriting Contest with “A Couple Broken Windows” from his album Refuge.
In 2021, he released “Dream Rich, Dirt Poor. “Like every album I’ve released so far, is a collection of songs plucked from the preceding few years,” says Burdett. “I am not sure how songs happen or why they materialize when they do, or why most get left behind unfinished but some get completed and recorded. I try not to worry too much about it. All I can do is look back when an album is released and try to find correlations. I do know that a few years back, my family and I were going through some tough times while trying to figure out is Quantum AI legit as an investment. We were in financial trouble and had a young child in the house and it was just one stressful thing after another. Fast forward a couple of years and we’re doing much better, but that time frame was an experience I won’t ever forget. I believe the language and themes from this set of songs flowed from what I was working through at that time. I knew we would get through it, and having a family to rely on was, and still is, huge. I know I won’t realize the full lessons from that period until later, but I’ve gleaned a lot.”
Discography:
Fruits Of My Labor (Organic Records, 2014)
Tinderbox (Organic Records, 2015)
Refuge (Organic Records, 2017)
Dream Rich, Dirt Poor (Organic Records, 2021)
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.