“Buddy Mondlock writes beautiful songs and plays the kind of guitar they deserve. He’s a fine person and a fine artist.” Townes Van Zandt “Buddy Mondlock represents the best of the new generation of singer/songwriters in folk music. His writing style is grounded in the traditions of the past, but has it’s heart in the present. He is one of my favorite writers.” Nanci Griffith “I first saw Buddy Mondlock while hosting the Ballad Tree, a tradition at the Kerrville Folk Festival. This kid in a bathing suit walked up and played “No Choice” to an audience of 30 - 40 people. By the time he got to the second verse, he had 200 people singing along with him. He blew me away! Pay attention to Buddy; he’s a great writer!” Guy Clark “Multitalented” lacks the power to characterize this extraordinary singer, songwriter and guitarist. Mondlock raises the craft of songwriting to the level of art and writes with the clarity of John Prine and the vivid imagery of Bob Dylan. Beetle Bob - Sauce Magazine “Mondlock’s songs are like movies you want to see again. He starts with the same world we all see and hear, but he transforms the sights and sounds into revelations that delight and melodies that linger.” Ed Morris - Billboard Magazine “Buddy Mondlock is the most startling new songwriting talent I’ve heard this year. This guy is an American Original, a folk poet whose vision veers effortlessly from wild witticism to soul-piercing insights. Living proof that the troubadour tradition sings on.” Robert K. Oermann - Syndicated Music Writer Buddy Mondlock Bio Buddy Mondlock writes songs. He does it so well that some great songwriters have recorded his songs on their own albums. Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith, and Janis Ian, to name just a few. You might’ve heard his song “The Kid” (recorded by David Wilcox, Peter, Paul and Mary and Cry, Cry, Cry) and maybe even sung it yourself around a campfire. He draws you into his world - where a single snowflake follows the trajectory of a relationship, where you get you pocket picked by a Roman cat, where you might swim over the edge of the world if you’re not careful and where dreams that don’t come true still count. Poetic Justice is his third album. To make it Buddy and co-producer Miles Wilkinson went into historic Woodland Studio in Nashville and started by spending a couple of days recording Buddy playing and singing the songs by himself. Over the next month or so at Omni they added bass (Dave Pomeroy, Viktor Krause, Mike Lindauer), drums & percussion (Sam Bacco, Eddie Bayers) and other touches like string quartet (arranged by Kris Wilkinson - no relation!), guitar and other stringed instruments (Darrell Scott), violin (Jonathan Yudkin), cello (John Cathcings), English horn (Marianne Osiel), B-3 (Barry Walsh), recorder & penny whistle (John Mock) and harmonica (Jellyroll Johnson). A host of friends helped out with background vocals (Nanci Griffith, Darrell Scott, Susan Ashton, Jonell Mosser, Tom Kimmel) culminating with a Guiness fueled pub choir on the last song, No Choice (Guy Clark, Jim Rooney, Carol Elliott, Ellis Paul, Tom Mitchell and Mark Luna). When Buddy’s not on the road you can find him in Nashville but he grew up in Park Forest, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He didn’t have a troubled childhood. His parents were nice to him. They paid for guitar lessons when he was ten and they never said, “when are you going to get a real job?” He sang Crosby, Stills and Nash songs with his sisters and answered his little brother’s questions from the top bunk. A few years away at college puzzling over Homer and Plato and then he was back. Living in the big city this time and playing open mics at Chicago’s crucible for songwriters in those days, the famed Earl of Old town. He once opened for the amazing Steve Goodman there on New Year’s Eve. Buddy was 21. Says he could have walked out of there that night and gotten hit by a bus and he wouldn’t have felt like life cheated him at all. When Buddy made his first trip to Texas from his native Chicago, Guy Clark heard him singing one of his songs under a tree at the Kerrville Folk Festival and liked it. So Guy went back to Nashville, opened the door and said, “listen to this kid, he’s good!” A publishing deal and a U-Haul headed south soon followed. People were starting to pay attention. In 1987 he was a New Folk Award Winner at Kerrville and he released his first album called “On the Line”. Over the next few years David Wilcox recorded “The Kid” on his first record for A&M. Buddy did some writing with this other new kid in town named Garth Brooks (they had the same manager). Janis Ian heard him singing at the Bluebird Cafe and asked him if he’d like to write with her. Their song “Amsterdam” got recorded by Joan Baez. Nanci Griffith asked Buddy to sing on a show she was taping for Irish television. She ended up liking that song so much that she recorded “Comin’ Down In the Rain” on her Grammy Award winning collection “Other Voices, Other Rooms.” Garth became a star and “Every Now and Then” ended up on his album “The Chase.” Buddy was touring all over the country by this time playing coffeehouses and the occasional festival (he was a regular on the main stage at Kerrville by this time). And there were trips to Europe too. Buddy’s second album, produced by Steve Addabbo in 1994, got picked up by Son Records, a small label in Ireland started by the band U2 and he was well received on the island of poets. He’s toured there consistently ever since. 1996 was a good year. Peter, Paul and Mary recorded “The Kid” and then asked the kid himself to sing with them on their “Great Performances” TV special. He won a Kerrville Music Award for song of the year that autumn for “The Kid” too. Since then he’s released a string of critically acclaimed solo recordings on his own label and EMI. And in 2003 Buddy toured North America and Europe with Art Garfunkel and Maia Sharp in support of their album “Everything Waits To Be Noticed” which they wrote and recorded together as a trio. Along with his concerts Buddy teaches songwriting workshops as well. In 2012 he was on staff at the Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson college in North Carolina teaching two intensive courses over a week’s time. And in 2013 Buddy returned once again to the Kerrville Folk Festival to perform and teach at the song school there.