Artists:Bruce Piephoff

Bruce Piephoff was born and raised and continues to live in North Carolina. He is a singer/songwriter with 14 CDs of original folk/blues and spoken poetry on Flyin' Cloud Records(www.flyincloudrecords.com). As a kid he was influenced by his father's guitar playing and interest in folksingers like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Eric Andersen, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Tom Waits and Tom Paxton.

He dropped out of college at UNC-Chapel Hill after 2 years to ply his trade as a traveling singer/songwriter and hitchhiked across the country several times playing at little bars and cafes. Later he returned to school during a slow period and finished a B.A. in English at UNC-Greensboro and even got his Master of Fine Arts degree there in poetry where he studied with Fred Chappell and Robert Watson.

This led to work in a wonderful program they had at that time called the Visiting Artist program. It was sponsored by the N.C. Arts Council and the Community College System and allowed artists to live in small rural communities doing concerts, workshops and performances free to the local community. The artist was paid a salary by the state and had full health insurance and benefits. Bruce did this kind of work as his bread and butter for a number of years, 1986-2001, and found such residencies all over N.C. and in Florida and Virginia before funding was ended in 2001 by the government.

Since then Bruce has gone back to touring the folk circuit coffeehouses, festivals, house concerts, schools, etc., often with Martha Bassett backing him on upright bass and vocals and Scott Manring on lead guitar. He has played everywhere from the Kennedy Center in D.C. to the Collard Festival in Ayden, NC and shared the stage with Tom Paxton, Chuck Brodsky, Steve Forbert, Riders In The Sky, Greg Allman, Hot Tuna and many others.

He performed at the main stage of Merlefest in 1993 and was a New Folk Finalist at Kerrville in 1994. His 2004 CD, Good People, reached the top 70 for May and June of 2004 at the folkradio. org website for a song called "20 Miles To Baghdad". The album and song also made Richard Gillman's Top Songs and Albums list for 2004 at FolkRadio.org. It received airplay on folk shows across the country and in England and Ireland and Bruce toured Arizona, New Mexico, Tennessee, Virginia, The Carolinas, Florida, West Virginia and a number of other states behind the CD. Chuck Brodsky has called Bruce "one of the best kept secrets in Americana music and one of the best songwriters in his region."

Bruce's release in 2005, his 13th CD of all original material for Flyin' Cloud Records, is called Bright Leaf Blues. It contains new solo recordings of 5 brand new songs and 19 of his best from over the years. It's 24 brand new solo recordings with only sparce backup on the 5 new ones from long time friend and multi-instrumentalist, Scott Manring. His 14th CD, Fools Get Away With The Impossible, has just been released in early 2006..