Arden, North Carolina (July 9, 2021) — Throughout the last year and a half, North Carolina songwriter Aaron Burdett has caught the attention of roots music fans and tastemakers with songs like “Rockefeller,” “Dirt Poor,” “Loser’s Bracket,” and “Arlo,”which have topped Bluegrass Today’s Grassicana chart, garnered months of play on SiriusXM’s Bluegrass Junction and been featured in national editorial outlets, including The Bluegrass Situation, Country Music News International and Laurel of Asheville.
Those who have discovered and been captivated by Burdett’s knack for observing life and telling vivid stories can hear more on his album Dream Rich, Dirt Poor, now available everywhere.
Joined by the members of his regular trio, mandolinist Daniel Ullom and bassist/vocalist Kim France, and a short list of sparingly used studio musicians and guests, including multi-instrumentalist David Johnson, fiddler Carley Arrowood and Larry Stephenson Band banjo player Derek Vaden, Burdett has created an album that sits squarely at the increasingly popular intersection of bluegrass, folk and progressive roots music. Dream Rich, Dirt Poor marks Burdett’s return to his North Carolina mountain roots in style and subject matter, its gritty themes and hard-earned authenticity revealing tough (and sometimes ironically humorous) truths about the lives of hardworking people — not only through those hits, but through the compilation’s additional new songs like “Hard Hand,” “Working Class” and “Too Far From Home.”
“Dream Rich, Dirt Poor, like every album I’ve released so far, is a collection of songs plucked from the preceding few years,” Burdett notes. “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. 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.”
Though he’s no stranger to acoustic music, this compilation reveals Aaron Burdett’srenewed appreciation for the beauty and power of unadorned wood and wire. The result adds further dimensions and depth to an artistry that had already given insiders reason to connect his name to sharp, detailed observation served up with an unselfconsciously literary flair.
“These songs help me process, they help me vent, they help me sort out my feelings when I don’t know how to do it any other way,” Burdett concludes. “I’m grateful to have that option, and I’m sure it’s why I play and write in the first place. I hope people enjoy these songs and get half as much benefit out of them as I did.”
Listen to Dream Rich, Dirt Poor HERE.
About Aaron Burdett
Aaron Burdett’s lyrics are soul-touching, intelligent, witty, and poetic all at once, while his music style is a seamless blend of Americana, country, blues, bluegrass, and folk.
Aaron is listed as one of the Top 10 most important musicians of western North Carolina by WNC Magazine, alongside such greats as Doc Watson, Steep Canyon Rangers, and The Avett Brothers. He has also received critical acclaim as a songwriter, Most recently winning the grand prize in the folk category of the USA Songwriting Contest with “A Couple Broken Windows” from his latest album Refuge (2018). His new single “Rockefeller” is one of three finalists in the bluegrass category In the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest for 2020 (postponed until 2021).
Aaron was also the winner of Our State Magazine’s Carolina Songs Competition in 2012 with “Going Home to Carolina.” Aaron’s song “Magpie” won third place bluegrass song in Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest in 2013. Over the years Aaron has been a finalist in numerous other songwriting competitions, including The Mountain Stage Songwriting Contest, The NC Songwriter’s Cooperative Songwriting Contest, and the Hank Williams Songwriting Contest.
As a child, Aaron discovered 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 budding guitarist and songwriter, he was drawn to powerful communicators of the time like David Wilcox and Tracy Chapman and John Gorka. In his late teens, he discovered John Prine on a cassette tape dug out of 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 Norman Blake, Tony Rice, David Grier, Tim O’Brien, Darrell Scott, and Gillian Welch.
Mix all those influences up, add time and pressure, seven full-album releases, thousands of live performances, and you get Aaron Burdett the songwriter and artist you hear today.
Drawing heavily on both the traditions of Appalachian folk music as well as nationally known songwriters, Aaron’s music gives voice to the small rural areas of the Blue Ridge Mountains while also speaking to the working men and women throughout the country.