Stephen Clair: Home

Songwriter and guitar slinger Stephen Clair makes up ferocious little songs and performs them for whoever will listen, which is sometimes you in your living room and other times to you and hundreds of of your friends all at once. While both of those situations have their benefits, it's pretty cool when 500 people in the Aladdin Theater can make it feel like you're all hanging out at home.

Stephen's songs have been praised up I-10 and down Interstate 80, mostly because he doesn't hide much of anything. When he sings you a batch of his songs, with a catalog that now spans more than a decade's worth of albums, he weaves you a narrative of his life -- a life that you can relate to, a life that is real, with all the troubles and all the weirdness and all the sleepless nights and all the goofiness that makes it legit.

That's why when Clair sings a love song about an average girl in town who runs errands in her slip, people want to hear it. It was the spinning of that ditty, "Jen In Her Underwear" (Little Radio, 2005), that led to WFUV listeners voting that self-released album one of the Top 50 records of the year. There's a magazine called Performing Songwriter out of Nashville that says, "Stephen Clair is the kind of citified troubadour that the roots songwriting world needs these days."

He's toured with Robert Earl Keen, opened for Joe Ely, James McMurtry, Vic Chesnutt, and The Gourds, to name a few; and played everywhere from Joe's Pub, to the Cactus Cafe, to the Hotel Cafe, to name a few.

Stephen's got a new record out now. It's the biggest and brightest yet, with all the wit and honesty we've come to expect from this guy. It's called WHAT LUCK (May 2008), and it was made down in Austin, Texas with some first-rate dudes. Click on the music link and give a listen.