Blake Guthrie
When he's not raving about himself in the third person for Artist Bios, Blake Guthrie lives in Atlanta, GA and travels the region as a solo performing songwriter. He also has a rock band–Getaway Car–that he plays with in the Atlanta area, or whenever Blake can convince them to hit the road with offers of free beer, good times and a buck or two.
A native of Birmingham, AL Guthrie has been playing professionally since 1996. In that year he was invited by the famed 40 Watt club in Athens, GA to open for alt-rock legend Frank Black. It was an odd match, the solo/singer-songwriter singing his quirky songs in front of Black's wall of amps to an initially indifferent audience, but it worked. Guthrie won them over with his honest approach and rough-hewn style, like some odd mix of Jonathan Richman and Bruce Springsteen–and he's been doing it under-the-radar like that ever since.
In 1998 Guthrie won the Critics Choice award for Best Singer/Songwriter in Atlanta from Creative Loafing, the largest news weekly in the Southeast. In 1999 he won the award again–a two-peat. Blake was then asked to write for the magazine and was thus disqualified from ever winning the award again. There would be no three-peat.
He also shared the stage with another up-and-comer in Atlanta, John Mayer (Guthrie wrote the first-ever feature story on Mayer in 2001). The two young songwriters worked the door together at Eddies Attic nightclub, where in 1999 they staged the infamous all-male singer/songwriter night Willis Fair in response to the estrogen-fest Lilith Fair. Blake will gladly share the video of this event with you if you have a VHS player and buy him some beer. It's quite fun viewing.
In 2002 Guthrie released his long-awaited first CD– Songs About Chicks –which was recorded live in front of an audience full of strangers at Eddies Attic. It was a bold but successful move as the troubadour endeared himself to yet another audience with his offbeat approach and affable stage presence.
Since those early days Guthrie has fine tuned his craft, becoming a respected professional on the local scene and continuing to spread out regionally and nationally. For some reason people in Australia, Canada and Belgium keep downloading songs from his latest CD–Til I Reach The Light (his first studio project, recorded with Getaway Car)–which Guthrie finds odd because he's never been to these countries and doesn't know anyone there.
He is currently at work on a novel, a new CD and freelancing for various publications and websites.