Christopher Paul Stelling (born February 19, 1982) is a singer-songwriter and guitarist currently based in Asheville, North Carolina. Stelling was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, and has also resided in Colorado, Washington, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. He has released four official albums, 2012's Songs of Praise and Scorn, 2013's False Cities, 2015's Labor Against Waste and 2017’s Itinerant Arias. He has toured the United States extensively and has also toured Europe.
Stelling's official debut album was self released on February 21, 2012.Songs of Praise and Scorn was recorded with friends over a 5-day period in August 2011 in a 200-year-old, actively working funeral home in Kentucky. Fifteen songs were recorded, but only 10 made the cut for the actual album. The album was met with very favorable reviews, prompting The Village Voice to say, "Every song on his debut album Songs of Praise and Scorn cooks with both down-home comfort and avant-garde brio, Stelling building earthy folk troubadour stories over a fluster of wild arpeggios."American Songwriter noted, "Stelling is an artist who can leave one shaking one's head in bewilderment over how somebody can play difficult guitar parts and sing a completely disparate melody line at the same time. But he also hasn't forgotten how to just play simple chords when that's what a song calls for."
Stelling's second album, False Cities, was released on May 21, 2013 immediately following his first European tour. Rick Moore of Music News Nashville said of the album, "...he [Stelling] is among the best of the current crop of troubadours who are eking out a living by playing house concerts and driving to shows in cars held together with paper clips. His fingerpicking ability is a great asset, but he writes and sings with a drive and determination that a lot of his peers lack...Stelling is on top of his game when it comes to writing songs that will translate to the stage as he travels the country to deliver them." For UK/US music Web site There Goes the Fear, Carrie Clancy wrote, "Despite the obvious comparisons to more mainstream folk artists, the musical range of 'False Cities', especially Stelling's powerful vocal delivery, makes a unique impression. His fire-and-brimstone lyrics are by turns concretely narrative and vaguely evocative, depending on the tone and focus of the song. As a songwriter, Stelling handles his subject matter quite deftly." Chris Martins of SPIN magazine said of the album, "The finger-picking force sings his own quavering brand of hellfire ("The Waiting Swamp") and hope ("You Can Make It") across these 10 songs, which whip the listener back and forth like a steam-powered hayride."
There is a fearless quality to the music of Christopher Paul Stelling. A voice that sounds both old and young, an effortless yet intricate finger-picking guitar style and lyrics that are both dramatic, and intensely confessional. It’s a sound that channels the restless spirit of a young man who left home to travel the country, haunting and impassioned songs formed by endless nights alone on stage with a guitar, playing to packed houses, other times to nearly empty rooms. Stelling estimates that he’s played over four hundred shows in just the past three years. It places him within a longstanding tradition that serves to nurture ones character and art.
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