Beaver Nelson is an Austin

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

-based singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

. His most recent release is Exciting Opportunity released in 2007.

While Beaver Nelson has long drawn critical acclaim from the music press including such publications as Texas Monthly

Texas Monthly

Texas Monthly is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Austin, Texas. Texas Monthly is published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. and was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, Texas Monthly chronicles life in contemporary Texas, writing on politics, the environment, industry, and education...

magazine, he enjoys the support of a passionate fan base in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

' gift to songwriting and bar room philosophy, Beaver was called a songwriting prodigy at the age of 18 by Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

and is making up for lost time (ten years signed to major labels and 2 shelved CDs) with four brilliant releases in five years.

Early career

Nelson got his start in Houston playing various venues and releasing two albums when he was still in high school. He moved from Houston to Austin in 1991 and began playing the thriving live music scene at such places as the Chicago House, Cactus Cafe and The Hole in the Wall.

Though Nelson is a Texas-based musician, he has mixed feelings about what that means these days. He told Rolling Stone Magazine in 2002, "I have a real love/hate thing going with the Texas songwriter thing. There used to be some really great songwriters that were coming out of Texas and had been for years but these people just happened to be from Texas. And every once in a while in a song they would mention something about Texas. I'm sitting here, writing songs, and I'm watching people to my left and right, and Texas is in every fourth title of their songs. Or Lone Star beer is in the chorus, and these people are 'Texas songwriters.' It's just not my thing.'"

Influences

Rolling Stone reported in February 2002:

An early interest in Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...

 and Lou Reed

Lou Reed

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...

 was the bugbite, and Nelson later happened upon the work of one of Texas' finest tunesmiths, the late great Townes Van Zandt

Townes Van Zandt

John Townes Van Zandt , best known as Townes Van Zandt, was an American Texas Country-folk music singer-songwriter, performer, and poet...

. "I discovered Greetings From Asbury Park

Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.

Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. is the first studio album by Bruce Springsteen, released in 1973. It only sold about 25,000 copies in the first year of its release, but had significant critical impact...

, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, Born to Run

Born to Run

The album's release was accompanied by a $250,000 promotional campaign by Columbia directed at both consumers and the music industry, making good use of Landau's "I saw rock 'n' roll's future—and its name is Bruce Springsteen" quote. With much publicity, Born to Run vaulted into the top 10 in its...

and Nebraska

Nebraska (album)

-Themes:The album begins with "Nebraska", a first-person narrative based on the true story of 19-year-old spree killer Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, and ends with "Reason to Believe", a complex narrative that renders its title phrase into contemptuous sarcasm...

in that order, found them, bought 'em and listened to them," he says. "Any young man who's a romantic who doesn't like those records needs to redefine his term of romantic. You just don't get more defiant than those records. Not that there wasn't plenty of thoughtful reflection in 'Wreck on the Highway

Wreck on the Highway

"Wreck on the Highway" is a song written and performed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. It was originally released as the final track on his fifth album, The River...

' and 'Drive All Night.' Springsteen was talking about how you don't like where you are. Dylan was saying there are better places to be, and you can go to them now. Townes felt like my little secret. He was a person that I could find. As far as his craft of writing, I don't think you get any better. Obviously if you're talking body of work, Dylan's put out over forty great records. Even his records that you talk about being bad, I love them all, but because I'm fascinated by the man and the way he thinks. Why would you just say, 'That's just a load of crap?' instead of asking 'Why would someone who wrote 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' write 'Wiggle Wiggle?' And you get to the fellow was just trying to have a good time and there's an enormous amount of validity in that too. I'm just interested in people's voices."

Albums

• Last Hurrah (1998)
• Little Brother (1999)
• Undisturbed (2001)
• Legends of the Super Heroes (2002)
• Beaver Lickers (2003)
• Motion (2004)
• Exciting Opportunity (2007)

Other contributions

• 107.1 KGSR Radio Austin - Broadcasts Vol.10 (2002) - "The Beauty in Store"

External links

• Beaver Nelson official site
• Beaver Nelson myspace
• [ Beaver Nelson @AllMusic.com]