Joseph Arthur at City Winery

 In his early teens in Akron, Ohio, Joseph Arthur inherited an electronic keyboard from his aunt and began writing and playing music. At age 16, he played bass in a blues band called Frankie Starr & the Chill Factor. In the early 1990s, Arthur relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, and sold guitars at a musical instruments store by day and played local clubs and recorded home demos by night. One demo caught the attention of Peter Gabriel, who then helped launch Arthur's career by financing Arthur's debut album. Arthur has played in several short-lived and commercially unsuccessful supergroups: Holding the Void with Pat Sansone of Wilco and the Autumn Defense in 2002-2003, Fistful of Mercy with Ben Harper and Dhani Harrison in 2010, and RNDM with Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament in 2012. Arthur is also a painter and designer, and in 2006 published a visual collection of his artworks in a book entitled We Almost Made It. Arthur's 14th and most recent album, The Family, was released on June 3, 2016.

Returning to City Winery for his eighth annual New Year's Night residency, the Brooklyn-based Arthur once again played solo. In past performances he built his songs by looping guitar, percussion and vocal lines live, but this time almost all the tracks were pre-looped. Nevertheless, he ingeniously created a layered sonic palette by singing and playing guitar along with and adding to the prerecorded tracks. His lyrics were poetic, often brooding introspectively with emotional and spiritual struggles, and he sang them with brawny confidence, sometimes harmonizing with himself via loop effects. On this particular evening, Arthur was especially jovial, charmingly engaging his audience with amusing banter between songs. Arthur also drew on a canvas, saying he hoped to sell the painting so he could use the money to escape the cold and fly to Mexico. Arthur's performance was unique and splendid, a terrific model for how to stage a one-person show imaginatively.

Visit Joseph Arthur at www.josepharthur.com.