Eugene Chadbourne (born 1954 in Mount Vernont, USA) is an American guitarist and music critic. Chadbourne grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and started playing guitar at eleven years old. After a few years playing in
a rock band, he began to take an interest in jazz and avant-garde music
and started to write about music. At some point, Anthony Braxton told
Chadbourne to focus on music rather than journalism, which he did. To avoid military service during the Vietnam War, he moved to Canada in
the early 1970s, then moved back to New York where he met
John Zorn. The
theme of the war will come back often in his songs and in his books. He devoted himself largely to free improvisation and released his first solo album in 1976 on his own label Parachute. In the early 80's, he founded the rock band Shockabilly with Kramer and David Licht. Playing guitar, dobro, banjo and even electric rake (instrument he
invented), he navigates between musical styles: pop songs, Country &
Western, free improvisations with many musicians of the contemporary
jazz scene (
Han Bennink, Anthony Braxton,
Fred Frith, Alex Ward), covers
of all kinds (Nick Drake, Ornette Coleman, and even Johann Sebastian
Bach banjo!). He tours regularly in the United States and Europe, solo, duet with
drummers (Jimmy Carl Black, Paul Lovens...) or in larger formations.
