Erick Baker

Singer/songwriter Erick Baker has built a sizable and steadily expanding audience, particularly throughout his home state of Tennessee, through songs that deliver raw emotional force while exploring the struggles of romance and everyday existence. Born December 12, 1978, in Knoxville, he developed an early passion for music yet refrained from singing or songwriting during his teenage years, only beginning to perform once he arrived at the University of Tennessee to study communication. During college he learned guitar and strummed casually at parties, later admitting the main motivation was the chance to meet women. Following graduation he treated music more seriously, performing cover material at neighborhood bars and coffeehouses before joining the local rock outfit Down from Up on guitar and vocals. The group issued two self-released albums, Live: Far from the Bottom in 2006 and A Terrible Beauty the next year; afterward Baker left the band to launch a solo acoustic career. An open-mike appearance in Knoxville caught the attention of a local promoter, who booked him as an opener for John Legend and helped generate early word-of-mouth interest. Baker issued his debut EP, It's Getting Too Late to Say It's Early, in 2008, and by the arrival of his first full-length release, Holding the Pieces in Place, in 2010, he had already appeared alongside James Blunt, Nanci Griffith, and Natasha Bedingfield while serving as the opening act on a Heart tour. The 2012 album Goodbye June, helmed by producer Ken Coomer, formerly of Wilco, coincided with continued road work that found him selling out intimate rooms as a headliner and filling larger venues as support for prominent artists. Nowhere has his connection proved stronger than in Knoxville, where he has sold out the Bijou Theatre on six separate occasions.