Singer-songwriter Bleu Edmondson grew up in Dallas and discovered his true calling while attending college at Texas A&M, but his story is no Aggie joke.
“I had started off going to college in Austin,” Edmondson says, “but I had a lot of friends who went to College Station, so I switched. I had never played guitar before, and music was never a dream or a goal, but my roommate had a guitar, and he taught me a bit, and I learned enough to start writing some songs and then I went to some open-mic nights.
“I was somewhat surprised when people said, ‘You don’t suck!’ so I kept going, learning from the likes of Robert Earl Keen, who also got hisstart as a student at A&M.”
Before long, Edmondson had a career and soon moved to New Braunfels, a town for musicians who want to be close to Austin, but not too close.
Edmondson, who takes a moment to proclaim his love for Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas, figures he has performed in The Natural State at least twice a year for the past seven years, accumulating many friends along the way.
“I do about 200 shows a year, and about 95 percent of them are me with my band, when I can get loud and rockin,’” he says. “And probably 99.9 percent of the music we do is my originals, although every now and then, I’ll do some obscure song by somebody else or maybe some song I had in my head and have been singing all day.”
Not that he doesn’t have enough of his own material to draw from. He calculates that he has released five CDs that are readily available, plus a live one that he sells at shows. His latest album, The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be, came out in October 2010, and the singer-songwriter is on the verge of making another … soon.
“I will go in and do another one,” he says. “I’ve got plenty of material, I just need to find a lull, and decide on who I’m going to work withas the producer, whether to go with Dwight Baker again or go a different way, stylistically. Probably, the songs will dictate who I go with.”
Edmondson’s song “Black & White” from The Future CD has been used by The Boot Campaign since 2010. The organization was started by a group of Texas women wanting to support American troops and the challenges they face when they return home. The song was an apt choice, as it tells the tale of a poor youth with a jobless future who hears the pitch of a military recruiter and then assures his mother “Trust me, Mom, this ain’t no Vietnam,” as he apparently signs up and prepares to leave home.
“I have a lot of respect for the military and their sacrifice,” Edmondson says in a raspy voice that has earned him comparisons to Bruce Springsteen.
“Well, I don’t know about sounding like ‘The Boss.’ There’s only one of those. I guess I sound this way thanks to having a great time four or five years ago, when I was smoking, partying and hanging out, but I think it’s possible to mature and come around and put my big boy pants on.
“Maybe someday I’ll even find a wife, but right now, I think it’s slightly unfair on some level to take on a wife and then kids and be an absentee husband and father, doing what I do to make a living, singing about people on the street and love, loss or breaking up. I guess most of my songs are about relationships.”
Bleu Edmondson Opening act: Thieving Birds 9 p.m. Wednesday, Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 107 River Market Ave., Little Rock Admission: $8 advance, $10 at the door (501) 372-7707
Style, Pages 26 on 09/03/2013