Florence Dore

Florence Dore, a native of Nashville, devoted fifteen years to performing across an assortment of punk, rock, and country groups before issuing her debut album, Perfect City. While maintaining an academic career, she balanced her musical ambitions with completion of a doctorate in American literature, a dissertation centered on modernism in the American novel that foregrounded William Faulkner, an author whose influence surfaces regularly in her own literary and emotionally articulate songwriting. At the moment Perfect City appeared, Dore occupied a tenure-track position at Kent State yet maintained a New York City residence thanks to a postdoctoral fellowship at N.Y.U. Earlier stops had included Boston, where she taught eighth grade while performing on the side with the Myrtles; Berkeley, where she joined the San Francisco band the Mudsills; and Wesleyan College in Connecticut, where she shared stages with Matt Ashare in the renowned punk outfit Puse Escalator. Once onstage, any trace of her scholarly life disappears, allowing her to deliver performances that match the intensity of any rock act. Her longstanding band—featuring Chris Erikson on lead guitar, a collaborator of more than ten years; Scott Yoder, known as Mojo Dixon, on bass; and Dennis Diken of the Smithereens on drums—supports her distinctive strain of poetically economical country-rock, a sound that recalls the approach of Lucinda Williams.