VIKESH KAPOOR

Several years ago, Vikesh Kapoor performed at Howard Zinn’s memorial service in Boston, in front of Zinn’s family and colleagues (including Noam Chomsky). Roused by Zinn’s lifelong battle against class/race injustice, Kapoor spent the following two years in Portland, Oregon working on his full-length debut record. The Ballad Of Willy Robbins, a concept album loosely based on a newspaper article, chronicles the brutal but hopeful story of a working class man who slowly loses everything: ambitions, health, family and shelter. It’s a worker’s tale, less specific to the blue-collar life as it is about anyone struggling to make something of themselves.

The New Yorker called the album "a series of sharply etched portraits of struggling Americans that points back along a road of socially conscious songs."

The Ballad Of Willy Robbins was co-produced by Adam Selzer (M. Ward) and features Nate Query (Decemberists, Black Prairie) and Jeff Ratner (Langhorne Slim).