Song:Chicago
Album:Illinois
Singer songwriter Sufjan Stevens has had success mostly as an album artist in the alt rock market. He records for his own Asthmatic Kitty label so he does what he wants. The 2005 album Illinois is his best seller to date and his first to be critically acclaimed. He was born July 1, 1975 in Detroit. When his parents divorced, he moved with his father and his wife to Petoskey in the lower peninsula of Michigan. His mother and her new husband Lowell Brams moved to Oregon. Brams now runs Asthmatic Kitty. While attending Hope College in Holland, MI, Stevens played local clubs in the band Marzuki. He then moved to New York to attend The New School. He started releasing albums on his own label Asthmatic Kitty. After the 2003 album Michigan, Stevens announced plans to record an album for each of the fifty states. The 2005 album Illinois was the second album of that project. The album was highly acclaimed. It was the highest rated album of 2005 on Metacritic which is like Rotten Tomatoes for music. The album sold 300K copies which is really good for an indie release. You may have heard Chicago in the 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine. Since then Stevens has been prolific releasing several albums of all kinds of music including film scores and orchestral works. His latest album Aporia was recorded with Brams. It was released in March. What about the fifty states project? In 2009, Stevens admitted that it was a promotional gimmick and a running joke and he never intended to complete it. Here's Sufjan Stevens performing Chicago on Austin City Limits 2006.
Frank, thank-you. Petoskey, Michigan is a place we visited many times growing up. It was were one of my grandmothers lived and was not that far from Traverse City, Michigan. Beautiful city. I will have to check out his music. Thanks so much sir.
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