Chrys Mitchell profile picture

Chrys Mitchell

Folk/folk rock songwriter and instrumentalist

About Me

Chrys Mitchell's songs reflect his musical roots in the folk boom of the sixties and his view of life as an odd, puzzling adventure we muddle through as best we can. His songs have been variously described as richly melodic, well-crafted, genuine, heartfelt, whimsical, and cheerfully nihilistic.A native of Rhode Island, Mitchell has also lived in Maryland (Baltimore), California (Santa Barbara/Goleta), Alaska (Anchorage), and California again (Fresno) before accidentally settling, at least for the forseeable future, in Iowa.Other than childhood violin lessons and seven years as a snare drummer in a drum and bugle corps, Mitchell is a self-taught musician. He started out on a cheap five-string banjo (with the help of Pete Seeger's classic instruction book) but switched to guitar after a couple of years and eventually evolved a distinctive pickless style combining intricate finger picking and strumming in varying proportions. After many years he picked up the five string banjo again as his secondary instrument, playing in a less than orthodox style that evolved from a guitar style that evolved from banjo picking.Mitchell has released two CDs of original songs and guitar and banjo instrumentals. TO HEAR MUSIC SAMPLES : Go to www.chrysmitchell.com (you'll find a link on the left side of this page) and click on an album cover. That takes you to the cdbaby page for that album, where you can listen to the first two minutes of any track that is highlighted on the track list. All songs from both albums are also available on such download sites as Apple iTunes, Napster, and Music Net.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 3/11/2006
Band Website: chrysmitchell.com
Influences: SONGWRITERS: Hoyt Axton, Libba Cotten, Steve Gillette, Gordon Lightfoot, Tom Paxton, Patrick Sky, Ian Tyson, Warren Zevon.CURRENT FAVORITE SONGWRITERS AND BANDS: Eric Bibb, Brave Combo, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Capercaillie, Tracy Jane Comer, Scott and Michelle Dalziel, Kris Delmhorst, Disappear Fear, Stephanie Dosen, Grada, Dezi Irwin, Brian Joseph, Kimberli, Les Yeux Noirs, Lojo Russo, Karla Ruth, Mary Lou Lord, Old Blind Dogs, Karen Savoca and Pete Heitzman, Kristin Shout and Smoking Kitten, Uncle Chuck Finch, The Wailin' Jennys, Wishing Chair, Melissa Rose Ziemer.OTHER WRITERS: Jane Austen, Peter S. Beagle, John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, T.C. Boyle, Albert Camus, Geoffrey Chaucer, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Katherine Anne Porter, Ogden Nash, Sharon Olds, Theodore Roethke, Tim Robbins, Carl Sagan, Shakespeare (if only because of the Shakespearean allusion in the last verse of "New Sun Rising"), Edna St. Vincent Millay, Richard Wright, James Wright, W.B. Yeats.MISCELLANEAOUS INFLUENCES: beaches, breakfast foods, clear desert nights, coyotes, dense fog, highways (especially moonlit highways in the wee hours of the morning), lucky breaks, mistakes (foolish and otherwise), mountains, mythology, prairies, rivers, snowstorms, thunderstorms, and, most important, friends, lovers, and even casual acquaintances.
Record Label: Time Check
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Recovering History

Yesterday I spent a few hours helping out with flood cleanup at Ushers Ferry, a living-history museum sort of  recreation of a nineteenth-century Midwestern village and site of a nice little...
Posted by Chrys Mitchell on Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:16:00 PST

Disaster Relief

After two and a half weeks of constant post-flood cleanup and getting in contractors for repair estimates, I finally got in a bit of disaster relief of a recreational sort this weekend. Managed to get...
Posted by Chrys Mitchell on Sun, 06 Jul 2008 03:43:00 PST

Slow Progress

The flood recovery process is going slowly--mostly because of obstacles created by our city government. I'm not going to go into details about changing procedures and poor communications regarding the...
Posted by Chrys Mitchell on Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:22:00 PST

Mostly Dry

I finally got a chance to access my house on Tuesday, and I can't believe how lucky I was. The floodwaters apparently hit the back of my house, detoured around the south side, moved back north a littl...
Posted by Chrys Mitchell on Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:57:00 PST

Maybe Flooded

The Myspace blog gremlins seem to be acting up tonight. My first blog entry disappeared into cyberspace, so here goes my second (and shorter) attempt. For anyone concerned about how the massive floodi...
Posted by Chrys Mitchell on Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:46:00 PST

Another Friend Gone

A few days ago I got a message on my voicemail telling me Ron Wallace died the week before. I don't know any details about his death, just that he's no longer with us. Ron played harmonica on one trac...
Posted by Chrys Mitchell on Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:37:00 PST

Free Money

Okay, don't get excited--I'm not offering free money to anyone. Instead, I've received some--my economic stimulus check from the IRS. I think I'm going to actually use it for the general purpose...
Posted by Chrys Mitchell on Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:53:00 PST

Storms

Ah, the joys of spring in the Midwest. Today was supposed to be a grungy, rainy day around here, but it turned out to be a pretty decent day, even if it was pretty overcast. Northern Iowa didn't fare ...
Posted by Chrys Mitchell on Mon, 26 May 2008 08:39:00 PST

Imminent Departure

It's early Sunday morning on the Gulf coast of Florida, and I'm just about ready to get on the road for Iowa. It's rather humid this morning--the first time all week that the humidty has been high, bu...
Posted by Chrys Mitchell on Sun, 18 May 2008 05:17:00 PST

Lazy Rainy Day

I'm in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The sky is grey and mostly liquid. A few feet from me is a very large black dog who hasn't been moving much today. He's mostly being a large lump in the middle of the ...
Posted by Chrys Mitchell on Sun, 11 May 2008 12:19:00 PST