Bucky Halker Company Information

Bucky Halker was born 1954, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin and raised in Ashland, WI, a worn-down iron-ore and lumbering town on Lake Superior. Took piano lessons and listened to polkas, country, and early rock and roll as a kid. At age 8 he was already on the airwaves of the familys 1000 watt AM radio station, WATW. I worked with Santa Claus on the air from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve. He talked and I read the letters to Santa from the kids. I loved it. I was Santas elf and that cooler than the livestock reports and the polkas! Started playing guitar and gigging locally. Girls were a big incentive! I wanted to be like Elvis or John Lennon, but I liked the way Dylan smoked. Hit 16, discovered cigarettes, black coffee, Woody Guthrie and folk music, Lightnin Hopkins and acoustic blues. Along with a democratic vision, Americas greatest gift to the world is the blues and the jazz and rock and roll that grew out of it. Got a BA in history (1976), followed by MA and PhD. Continued to do solo acoustic gigs and front rock bands and released first album A Sense of Place in 1984, a collection of his acoustic originals. Ten albums have followed, all of which draw heavily on country, rockabilly, folk, blues, bluegrass, and rock and rollAmerican roots music. Dont Want Your Millions (1999) and Welcome to Labor Land (2002), feature Buckys interpretations of labor and working-class protest songs from 1865-1955, including many previously unrecorded. Buckys recent Wisconsin, 2-13-63, Volumes 1 & 2 (2007/2008) feature all originals and guest performances from some of Chicagos best musicians. Both received glowing reviews in the US and Europe and made the Americana record charts as well. A prominent scholar of working-class history, Bucky wrote For Democracy, Workers, and God: Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest 1865-1895 (University of Illinois Press, 1991). He was also the scholar-producer of Folksongs of Illinois, a five-CD series that documents the rich and diverse heritage of Illinois folk music. The CD series utilized archival, ...