Nolen Sellwood
Nolen is young artist with an old soul.
His beautifully crafted singing and songwriting skills are captured on his freshman album, to be released soon.
Newcomer to the Minneapolis music scene, we cannot wait to see what his bright future in music looks like.
Crafting the Album
Nolen's experience
Considering that it's my first time ever recording any kind of music or going to any kind of studio it was pretty scary. Sometimes I feel like a leper when it comes to my social peers, the people I grew up with didn't understand a lot of the music that I appreciated and tried to make.
I was pretty much going in blind with John; having never connected with someone who truly understood what I wanted to do, but he did understand what I was making and took the effort to help craft it into something great.
Recording with John is always an amazing my experience, just the most lighthearted and endearing times I've ever had. Along with him introducing me to Steve Lehto, Bob McMenoman, Mario Dawson, April Bogatz, Ken Onstad, and all of the other people who are helping shape my future.
Inspired
Nolen started learning guitar from his art teacher in high school at 15 and started to make his own music a year later at 16.
He started his musical ventures in jazz with Michael Franks, but the first album that really touched him was Pink Moon by Nick Drake, it was just so compelling and made him fall in love with the folk genre. Nolen is also inspired by the ethereal Angelo De Augustine and Sun Kil Moon. With those influences he has developed his own unique style.
Rootstime Review
Musical talent really is everywhere in this world. The trick lies in discovering all those young promising artists who all start very ambitiously and hope to break through internationally quickly. However, that fate is not reserved for so many and most young wolves quickly drop out after dealing with such a disappointment. Yet even after 18 years of writing reviews about records, we at 'Rootstime' are still surprised when such a new talent appears out of nowhere.
That thought now surfaced again when we put the CD “Cadence To The Flame” by the very young singer-songwriter Nolen Sellwood from Minneapolis, Minnesota into the stereo system for the first time and played the eleven songs of this American 'star'. in the making' were allowed to listen and discover. Nolen Sellwood is a young artist with an old soul who can write and sing very beautiful songs. He did this for the first time last year on a completely unknown debut album “Otherwise”, which gave him many performances in Minneapolis and encouraged him to record this second album “Cadence To The Flame” with producers Steven Lehto and John Wright recording at the 'Villa' studio in Savage, Minnesota.
Nolen Sellwood is so young that he is still studying at the University of Minnesota, where he has found two musical blood brothers in trumpeter Sam Hovda and percussionist Owen Reinert Nash to perform with and make these records. He plays guitar himself, while John Wright plays bass guitar and Steven Lehto provides additional instrumentation on guitar. In some songs we also hear a saxophone played by John Reinert Nash, Owen's brother.
Nolen says he is inspired to create his music by British folk musicians John Martyn and Nick Drake, the two singer-songwriters and guitarists who sadly both passed away in 2009 and 1974 respectively. This adoration for these two folk legends perhaps explains partly why we previously attributed that old soul to Nolen Sellwood. But his songs also contain traces of the work of John Martyn and Nick Drake. To support this claim, just listen to the two songs that Nolen Sellwood performs live on the videos attached here: “Humid Rain” and “Lavender”.
Other beautiful narrative folk songs that we would like to select from this beautiful album are opener “State Of Being”, the beautifully instrumented “Forthcome”, the barely 1 minute long fully instrumental “Delicata” and the ballads “Masque” with Sam Hovda cleverly on trumpet and “Like A Sailor”. We are willing to bet that we will hear many more beautiful things from this young folk troubadour from Minnesota in the coming years.
"Throughout history music has been full of prodigies, going back to Mozart, musicians who showed extraordinary musical ability and maturity at an early age. The classical world, jazz, and bluegrass have seen their share of youthful performers who have been virtuosic instrumentalists, often emerging as early teens.
This week we have the debut album of a teenage artist who is not so much a prodigy on his instrument, but rather one who captures a distinctive style of more than 50 years ago. It’s Nolen Sellwood, who has released his debut album called Otherwise." ( The Grahm Review)
"I am flabbergasted to discover that this is a debut album by a young, up-and-coming artist that goes by the name of Nolen Sellwood. The new record is titled ‘Otherwise’ and you would think Nolen has been in the music game for a while due to the professional recording quality and top-tier songwriting. Believe it or not and I wouldn’t say ‘Otherwise’ that this is the absolute first time ever that Nolen Sellwood has recorded any material. Brace yourselves for an incredible debut album from an artist on a mission to be recognized by a wide audience.
It is said that Nolen Sellwood has an “old soul” and I would have to agree after taking in ‘Otherwise’. Nolen performs with extreme confidence and striking vulnerability and writes songs like a seasoned vet in the studio. The Minneapolis music scene has a “New Kid in Town” (Eagles) and his name is Nolen Sellwood breaking out in a BIG way with ‘Otherwise’. (Skope Mag)
Nolen Sellwood on PBS Backroads
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