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Artist
Kurt Fortmeyer
12+ albums
about
Kurt Fortmeyer Americana singer/songwriter (May 25, 1956 Edenton, North Carolina-) Kurt Fortmeyer was born in a barn and raised in a stable environment, or so he might tell an unwitting listener in one of his sillier moments. His life was changed irreparably at a tender and impressionable age when he was subjected to Roger Miller's "Do-Wacka-Do", as well as recordings of Allan Sherman, Chubby Checker, and Trini Lopez. After being sentenced to play in several unremarkable garage bands while still in high school, Kurt was paroled and released into the custody of PAYDIRT, a rag-tag folk-rock group of writers and other misfits. The late 1970s found him stretching his wings for a solo flight at the now-defunct HOLE IN THE WALL SALOON on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, North Carolina. Later, while under the influence of Jack Kerouac, Jesse Winchester, and Townes Van Zandt, Kurt spent some time hitchhiking coast-to-coast, playing in the streets and parks of New Orleans, New York, Memphis, and San Francisco. In the early 1980's, Kurt was in Greenville, North Carolina fronting THE GUISE, whose repertoire ran the gamut from George Jones and Johnny Cash to Iggy Pop and The Cramps, as well as hard-to-classify originals. Relocating to Raleigh in 1983, Kurt once again pursued the solo angle. While gigging with short-lived funk/blues party band BUTT MUSCLE (which included former-Backslider Steve Howell, blues whiz "Near Blind James" Shoe, and former-Bad Checks drummer Mike Griffin)
