DON PEDIGO

"NEWS!" Creed Bratton from NBC's "The Office" and former "Grassroots" guitarist has recently cut Don's song "Going Under" for his upcoming release. Check him out @ www.creedbratton.com and www.myspace.com/grassroots .
The life of a singer/songwriter has many twists and turns, and there is no one path to achieving the goal---and what is that goal? Stardom, perhaps. Acknowledgement from one's peers, most likely. But for Don Pedigo, the pot at the end of the rainbow has been the song, the ability to put his lyrical/musical thoughts into three or four minutes and tell a story without sounding like a windbag. With heroes like John Fogerty, John Prine, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, Pedigo has always had to hold his songs to a very high standard, and working with two accomplished songwriters as his producers ups the ante. But on his debut cd, What I Was Running From, this young Indiana troubador has made his mark as a voice to be listened to in the 21st Century. "I know I still have a ways to go," Pedigo explains, "but I am deeply proud of every song on this record, and I think I did them justice with my singing and playing." Don grew up in Indiana surrounded by music, as his parents were involved in a local Christian music scene, but his tastes ran more to the secular. "I don't have anything against it, but my own musical tastes were in a different place. My religion and my faith are very important to me, but that's not what I'm singing about." With this exposure to music from an early age, Don developed his skills as a fine singer and superb guitarist and became a name around town. John Mellencamp's musical director Larry Crane learned of Don's reputation and drafted him to back up Crane on his solo gigs. Soon after, Don started putting a band together to record his songs. Matt Buckner, an old friend of Don's with a distinctive fingerstyle/slide guitar style, joined forces with Pedigo and they assembled a band to record what would become What I Was Running From. In Nashville, Don began working with Earl Bud Lee (writer of One Night At A Time and Friends In Low Places) who ended up co-producing the album with Jon Tiven (producer of B.B. King, Frank Black, P.F. Sloan, Wilson Pickett). PBS has chosen the song "Indiana" to bookend their series about the state, and Don is already hard at work writing his next album. "I think my best work is still in front of me, but in my mind I've set the bar for myself pretty high already. I cannot afford to write songs that I'll be sick of in a few years. I'm in it for the long haul." It may sound a tad immodest........but only until you hear the record. ~Jon Tiven