Susan Werner at CSPS

An evening with
SUSAN WERNER
Throughout the US, and a string of accolades from the likes of The Washington Post, The Village Voice and The New Yorker, Susan Werner has become one of the defining artists of the folk music genre. Her songs effortlessly slide between folk, jazz and pop, and are delivered with a sassy wit and classic Midwestern charm.
Farm girl Werner was raised in Manchester, Iowa, and studied classical voice at the University of Iowa and Temple University. Inspired by a Nanci Griffith concert, Werner left behind her opera training and began performing as a singer-songwriter at coffeehouses throughout the northeast. She self-released her first album Midwestern Saturday Night in 1992 and then went on to put out Live at the Tin Angel the following year. In 1995 came her breakout album, Last of the Good Straight Girls, followed by the acclaimed releases Time Between Trains and New Non-Fiction.
Always ready to reinvent herself, in 2004 Werner released an album of songbook classics, I Can't Be New. For years she had incorporated cabaret style numbers in her live performances, exchanging her guitar for a piano whenever there was one to be had. I Can't Be New attracted raves from fans and critics alike, with one calling it "a brilliantly constructed, soulful, and cleverly tender effort by a songwriter and musician who is in such complete command of her gifts that it's almost scary."
2007 saw the release of Werner's latest endeavor, The Gospel Truth, a collection of originals she describes as "hymns for the spiritually ambivalent." This controversial project surveys a wide variety of attitudes toward the church in America and incorporates styles ranging from traditional bluegrass gospel, to a hand-clapping rouser for agnostics entitled "Probably Not."
Provocative and original, the new CD confirms that, in the words of Howard Reich, chief critic of the Chicago Tribune, "Susan Werner is one of the most innovative songwriters working today."
Sat Apr 12 | 8 pm
CSPS | 1103 Third St SE | Cedar Rapids
$15 advance | $18 day of show

Get tickets
Go to artist's Web site
Click here for a downloadable flyer (PDF)
Back to calendar