Beaver Nelson Biography

Beaver Nelson Biography

Beaver Nelson is an Austin, Texas-based singer-songwriter. His most recent release is 2007's, Exciting Opportunity. While Beaver has long drawn critical acclaim from the music press and such publications as Texas Monthly magazine, he enjoys the support of a passionate fan base in Japan. Texas' gift to songwriting and bar room philosophy, Beaver was called a songwriting prodigy at the age of 18 by Rolling Stone and is making up for lost time (ten years signed to major labels and 2 shelved CD's) with four brilliant releases in five years. Nelson got his start in Houston, Texas playing various venues and releasing two albums when he was still in high school. Beaver moved from Houston to Austin in 1991 and began playing the then-thriving live music scene at such places as the Chicago House, Cactus Cafe and The Hole in the Wall. Though Nelson is a Texas based singer/songwriter, he has mixed feelings about what that means these days. He told Rolling Stone Magazine in 2002, "I have a real love/hate thing going with the Texas songwriter thing. There used to be some really great songwriters that were coming out of Texas and had been for years. But these people just happened to be from Texas. And every once in a while in a song they'd mention something about Texas. I'm sitting here, writing songs, and I'm watching people to my left and right, and Texas is in every fourth title of their songs. Or Lone Star beer is in the chorus, and these people are 'Texas songwriters.' It's just not my thing".

He spoke of his influences in a Rolling Stone Magazine article in February 2002. An early interest in Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Lou Reed was the bugbite, and Nelson later happened upon the work of one of Texas' finest tunesmiths, the late great Townes Van Zandt. "I discovered Greetings From Asbury Park, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, Born to Run and Nebraska in that order, found them, bought 'em and listened to them," he says. "Any young man who's a romantic who doesn't like those records needs to redefine his term of romantic. You just don't get more defiant than those records. Not that there wasn't plenty of thoughtful reflection in 'Wreck on the Highway' and 'Drive All Night'. Springsteen was talking about how you don't like where you are. Dylan was saying there are better places to be, and you can go to them now. Townes felt like my little secret. He was a person that I could find. As far as his craft of writing, I don't think you get any better. Obviously if you're talking body of work, Dylan's put out over forty great records. Even his records that you talk about being bad, I love them all, but because I'm fascinated by the man and the way he thinks. Why would you just say, 'That's just a load of crap?' instead of asking 'Why would someone who wrote the 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Caroll' write 'Wiggle Wiggle?' And you get to the fellow was just trying to have a good time and there's an enormous amount of validity in that too. I'm just interested in people's voices".