Blake Guthrie, writer and musician

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When he's not raving about himself in the third person for his artist bio, Blake Guthrie lives in rural Georgia and roams the country as a
singer/songwriter and travel journalist. 
 
A native of Birmingham, AL, Guthrie has been playing professionally since the mid '90s. One of his first gigs was at the famed 40 Watt club in Athens, Georgia, in 1996 opening for alt-rock legend Frank Black. It was an odd match, the solo singer/songwriter with his quirky and romantic songs standing in front of Black's wall of amps, singing to an initially indifferent audience, but it worked. Guthrie won the crowd over with his honest approach, keen sense of humor and rough-hewn style, like an unexpected mix of Jonathan Richman meets Bruce Springsteen - and he's been doing it under-the-radar like that ever since.
 
When he was still wet behind the ears as a newcomer on the Atlanta music scene in the late '90s, Guthrie won the Critics Choice award for "Best Acoustic Act" in Atlanta from Creative Loafing, the largest alternative newsweekly in the Southeast. A year later he won the award again - a two-peat. Guthrie was then asked to write for the newspaper, thus being disqualified from ever winning the award again. There would be no
three-peat.
 
He also shared the stage at this time with another up-and-comer in Atlanta, John Mayer. The two young songwriters worked the door together at the famed Eddie's Attic nightclub, where they staged the tongue-in-cheek, all-male concert Willis Fair in response to the estrogen-fest Lillith Fair. Guthrie will gladly share his VHS tape of the evening (which also included Kristian Bush from Sugarland) if you are nice to him and still own a VCR.
 
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," which Guthrie finds odd because he's never been to these countries and doesn't know anyone there. Guthrie is currently at work on a new batch of songs for his next album, which he hopes will be released sometime this century.

When he's not raving about himself in the third person for his artist bio, Blake Guthrie lives in rural Georgia and roams the country as a singer/songwriter and travel journalist.

A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Guthrie has lived in Georgia since the 1990s when he moved to Athens to check out the music scene and play his first gigs.

Flagpole Magazine, the alternative newsweekly in Athens, said at the time, "He's either a psychopath or some kind of genius." 

One of his earliest gigs was at the legendary 40 Watt Club opening for alt-rock legend Frank Black. It was an odd match, the solo artist singing his quirky heartfelt songs in front of Black's wall of amps to an initially indifferent audience, but it worked. Guthrie won the crowd over with his honest approach, keen sense of humor, and rough-hewn style, like an unexpected mix of Jonathan Richman meets Bruce Springsteen. He's been doing it under-the-radar like that ever since.

Still wet behind the ears after moving into the Atlanta music scene in the late '90s, Guthrie won the Critic's Choice award for "Best Acoustic Act" from Creative Loafing, the city's alternative newsweekly. A year later he won the award again – a two-peat. He was then asked to write for the newsweekly, thus being disqualified from winning the award again. There would be no three-peat, but a journalistic writing career was born.

Around his time he shared the stage with another up-and-comer in Atlanta, John Mayer, 11 years his junior, and wrote the first feature article about the nascent soon-to-be pop star guitar hero. The two songwriters worked the door together at the famed Eddie's Attic nightclub, where they staged the tongue-in-cheek, all-male concert Willis Fair in August of 1999 in response to the estrogen-fest Lilith Fair.  Somewhere out there a recording of the entire evening exists on two separate VHS cassettes. 

Since those early days, Guthrie has fine-tuned his craft, becoming a respected professional on the local scene while continuing to spread out beyond the region. For some reason, people in Australia, Canada, and Belgium keep downloading and streaming songs from his albums "Til I Reach The Light,"  and "Songs About Chicks," which Guthrie finds odd because he's never been to those countries and doesn't know anyone there. 

He is currently at work on a new batch of songs for his next album, which will be released sometime this century.

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