Cliff Eberhardt is an American folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 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...

. He is a founding member of the Fast Folk Music Cooperative

Fast Folk

Fast Folk Musical Magazine , was a combination magazine and record album published from February 1982 to 1997...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. Eberhardt joined Red House Records

Red House Records

Red House Records is an American independent record label specializing in folk music and is based in St. Paul, Minnesota.The label was originally created in 1981 by Greg Brown as a method to distribute his own music, and is named for a farmhouse in Iowa where he was living...

 in 1997 and has recorded five albums for the label, the most recent in 2009, 500 Miles: The Blue Rock Sessions. In 2011, he released an acoustic album of Doors

The Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

 songs, All Wood and Doors, with fellow musician James Lee Stanley

James Lee Stanley

James Lee Stanley is an American folk singer-songwriter.-Biography:Stanley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of Italian, German, Cherokee Indian, Scotch/Irish and English heritage. He said in a 2002 interview that as a child he was "shy, bright, blessed ... strict father gentle mother ......

 on Beechwood Recordings. Also that year, he contributed a cover to Nod to Bob II, a Red House compilation honoring Bob 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...

 on his 70th birthday.

Early life

Eberhardt was born on January 7, 1954, in Berwyn, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, near Philadelphia. His family had a musical background, and he began playing guitar at an early age. At 15, he and his brother Gregg began touring as a duo. In 1976, he moved to Carbondale

Carbondale, Illinois

Carbondale is a city in Jackson County, in the state of Illinois, within the Southern Illinois region. It is located at the junction of Illinois Route 13 and U.S. Route 51, southeast of St. Louis, Missouri, on the northern edge of the Shawnee National Forest...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, attracted by the local music scene, spent some time in Colorado, and then in 1978 relocated to New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where he became part of the second folk and acoustic music revival. Among the other artists performing in Lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...

 coffeehouses at the time were John Gorka

John Gorka

John Gorka is a contemporary American folk musician. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine called him "the preeminent male singer-songwriter of what has been dubbed the New Folk Movement."-Biography:...

, Shawn Colvin

Shawn Colvin

Shawn Colvin is an American singer-songwriter and musician.-Childhood and early career:Colvin was born in Vermillion, South Dakota. Her formative years were spent in the town of Carbondale, Illinois, where she attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She learned to play guitar at the age...

, Lucy Kaplansky

Lucy Kaplansky

Lucy Kaplansky is an American folk musician based in New York City. Kaplansky also has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Yeshiva University.-Biography:...

 and David Massengill

David Massengill

David Massengill is an American folk singer/songwriter, guitar and appalachian dulcimer player. His best-known songs include "On The Road to Fairfax County," recorded by The Roches and by Joan Baez, "The Great American Dream," and "My Name Joe," about an illegal immigrant restaurant worker...

.