Darryl Purpose

Darryl Purpose

Darryl Purpose is an American singer-songwriter folk musician, known for his narrative (often very personal) lyrics and fingerstyle guitar. Before becoming a professional musician, Purpose was a professional blackjack player and was known as one of the best in the world.[1] In 1986, Purpose walked across the USA with The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament and then a year later in the former Soviet Union. In 1996, he became a "full-time folk singer" who "hit the folk scene...with an unusually eclectic resume that provided him with a wealth of compelling stories to tell."[2]

Contents

Outreach

While in the former Soviet Union, Purpose took note of the many talented musicians playing instruments that were unfit for their level of expertise and left several guitars with them. Later, in El Salvador, he witnessed how the people would alter guitars that were falling apart in order to still be able to play music. To the end of assisting struggling musicians across the globe, Darryl Purpose and Kevin Deame announced the beginning of The Second Strings Project in 1999. They collect used guitar strings from artists in the United States and distribute them to needy musicians around the world.[3]

An especially gifted melodist, Purpose has often collaborated on songs primarily with two lyricists, both who are authors as well as songwriters: Robert Morgan Fisher, with whom he wrote "Mr. Schwinn" among other songs, and Paul Zollo, with whom he wrote the Chavez Ravine tale "Crooked Line," as well as "California (Rutherford Hayes In The Morning)," "Baltimore," "Sunny's House," and "The Ghost of Crazy Horse."

Discography

  • 1996: Right Side of Zero
  • 1997: Same River Twice
  • 1999: Travelers' Code
  • 2001: A Crooked Line
  • 2002: The Gift of the Magi (and other seasonal stories)
  • 2005: Live At Coalesce CD/DVD

External links

Notes

  1. ^ Darryl Purpose: The Cards He's Dealt, Annette C. Eshleman, Dirty Linen issue #93, April/May 2001
  2. ^ Darryl Purpose Biography, Evan Cater, AllMusic
  3. ^ http://www.secondstringsproject.org/