Erica Wheeler is an award-winning singer/songwriter, an accomplished keynote speaker and dynamic workshop facilitator.
She brings her gift for connecting people and place to both her music and her inspiring Soulful Landscape programs.
"Wheeler is the perfect kind of singer/songwriter: she writes songs filled with detail and revelation, and she sings them with a voice that is versatile and moving." Whazup.com
About Erica and the Soulful Landscape Programs
Erica originally attended college to become a wildlife field biologist. She went on to become an award-winning singer/songwriter whose songs are deeply rooted in the land and a sense of place. After years of touring and witnessing the rapid change and growth that forever altered some of her favorite places, she decided to bring her work full circle.
Drawing on her experience in the performing arts and her life long passion for natural history, cultural history and conservation issues, she created her Soulful Landscape programs to mend the disconnect between people and place. Her work helps to and foster the sense of engagement needed to care for our treasured places.
Her most recent CD Good Summer Rain was sponsored in part by the Trust for Public Land, a national land conservation organization and won first place for Best Interpretive Music at 2008 National Association for Interpretation Media Awards.
Performing Artist
With six critically acclaimed recordings to her credit, Erica has headlined clubs from Boston to Berkeley and shared the stage with Greg Brown, Shawn Colvin, Indigo Girls and others. Her songs have charted in the top ten on Billboard’s Gavin Americana Chart, and she has been interviewed on Voice of America, NPR’s All Things Considered and other syndicated radio programs.
Known for her visual, 'cinematographic' style of songwriting, Erica Wheeler takes listeners on a journey though the American landscape and the lives lived there with poetic beauty and grace. Her music is pure Americana, falling into the categories of folk, country and bluegrass. On stage, armed with an acoustic guitar and her richly expressive voice, Erica is also known for her engaging warmth, colorful stories and hilarious stage patter.
"If this CD doesn't compel you to get outside and enjoy what little green space we have left, put it on for a mental break while you're stuck in the concrete gridlock of rush hour." -Performing Songwriter Magazine
Speaker, Educator and Conservation Advocate
Erica started college with wildlife field biology in mind, but ultimately, she chose music—or it chose her— going on to become an award-winning singer-songwriter whose work is deeply rooted in the natural world and a sense of place.
After years of crossing the country, and witnessing the rapid growth that was forever changing the landscape of many of her favorite places, she decided to bring her work full circle. Today, Erica combines her career as a performing artist with her lifelong interest in natural and cultural history and conservation issues to offer the Soulful Landscape, keynote concerts, workshops and trainings programs.
Erica has presented the Soulful Landscape at conferences, events and learning centers across the country, from Yosemite National Park (CA) to the Thoreau Institute (MA). Her work connecting people and place has been featured in national publications such as Orion, Yankee and Yes! magazines.
Her most recent CD Good Summer Rain was sponsored in part by the Trust for Public Land, a national land conservation organization. It also won first at the 2008 by the National Association for Interpretation media awards for Best Interpretive Music. (NAI is a professional association for people involved in the interpretation of our natural and cultural heritage resources)
"We need more sessions like this. Important reminder of why we do the work we do." Participant, National Land Trust Alliance Rally
Biography
Raised in the suburbs of Washington DC (Chevy Chase, Maryland) Erica was exposed to traditional folk and bluegrass music through family escapades to the surrounding regions of rural Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland. She began playing guitar in 8th grade, inspired by the music featured in the coal-mining documentary "Harlan County, USA." She notes "Whenever there was tension in that film, the music would cut right through and tell the truth. It impressed me then how powerful music can be." She acquired a book called 1,001 folk songs, and has been playing guitar ever since.
Erica's early musical inspiration came from her parents recordings of folk singers such as Judy Collins and Odetta, as well as bluegrass bands like the Country Gentlemen and the Seldom Scene. Growing up, her brothers collection of 70's singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Neil Young were favorites. In college, when she began writing songs in earnest, Erica was inspired by Ferron and Joan Armatrading, and later, Nanci Griffith, Shawn Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Erica has also been deeply inspired by writers such as Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard, Barbara Kingsolver, Terry Tempest Williams and the poet Mary Oliver.
Erica's music career began in Northampton, MA, an area known as "home" to a host of touring songwriters and a hotbed for the New England revival of the acoustic music scene. At a local club of national fame, (The Iron Horse Music Hall,) Erica quickly developed from an opening act into a headliner. She honed her skills there watching artists like Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Suzanne Vega in the 170-seat room. Erica was also a frequent participant in the Northampton Songwriter Group, which then included fellow songwriters Dar Williams, Cliff Eberhardt, Annie Gallup, Jim Henry and more.
Erica currently lives north of Northampton, Massachusetts in the hilltown of Colrain. Her home is a 100-year-old little house beside a rushing brook, surrounded by her neighbor's 750-acre dairy and maple sugar farm. Erica finds her "sense of place" both at home and traveling back roads of America. A troubadour in the classic sense of the word, Erica's impressions of the people and places she meets along the way eventually work their way into her songs.
Her evocative, visual songs and her powerful Soulful Landscape programs inspire a sense of place and connection in listeners that is much needed in our world today. Her passionate love for places sparks an authentic response in others to care about their their survival and stewardship.
"Listening to "Good Summer Rain" is like flipping through the photo album of an Ansel Adams road trip. Each artfully created song transports the listener to a particular location, like a snapshot in time. -Planet Jackson Hole News
Discography
Erica has six recordings to her credit. She released her first two on her own Blue Pie label. (Blue pie is waitress shorthand for blueberry pie.)
Strong Heart(1989) came out on cassette while she was still a waitress, house painter and home health care aid.
From That Far (1992) followed on CD, launching her official start as a national touring artist.
The Harvest (1996) In 1996 was signed to the Signature Sounds label where she released her breakthrough CD The Harvest. That year she also took home first place in the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest Troubadour contest.
Produced by bluegrass veteran Laurie Lewis, The Harvest was released to critical acclaim, "This is new folk at its best" Acoustic Guitar Magazine. It solidified her reputation as one of the finest touring artists to come out of the New England folk resurgence in the 90's. It also garnered her a feature interview on NPR's All Things Considered, a top 10 spot on Billboard's Gavin American Chart.
three wishes (1999) featured members of Bob Dylan's road band and was released on Signature Sounds to more critical acclaim.
Almost Like Tonight (2004) followed on her own Blue Pie label, with assistance from Signature Sounds.
Good Summer Rain (2008) was her next studio recording and is by far her most outstanding release to date. Released on her own Blue Pie label with radio assistance from Signature Sounds. The CD was also sponsored in part by the Trust for Public Land. a national land conservation organization.
Produced in Boston by Crit Harmon (Martin Sexton, Mary Gauthier, Lori McKenna), Good Summer Rain fuses the roots Americana sounds of dobro, mandolin, guitar, and drums with the elegance of piano and upright bass, offering a rich textural foundation for Erica's expressive lyrics and intimate, conversational vocal style.
Good Summer Rain is an imaginative, unforgettable journey through the American landscape and the lives lived there Each song beautifully evokes the relationships between people and place, spanning from the intimate streets of Greenwich Village to the sweeping vistas of Jackson Hole. They reach out to where farmland gives way to sprawl and wilderness gives way to industrial growth. Thoughtful, deeply spiritual and satisfying, Good Summer Rain evokes a sense of connection that is much needed in our world today.
