Richard Buckner Talks Life & Death with StudiO+

An exclusive StudiO+ appearance by Richard Buckner

Richard Buckner’s most recent record, Surrounded (2013, Merge Records), is his tenth full-length in a legacy dating back just shy of two decades. During that span, he’s stirred a substantial cult following of heartened fans — nearly spiritual about his music — whispering of him accolades like “greatest living songwriter.”

Some claim that his style defies categorization, in a gesture of reverence, but Pitchfork and NPR agree on an outsider-country parallel to Townes Van Zandt. Others posit a Dylan who managed to evolve favorably with the times, or a Jeff Buckley who’d hung in there.

He’s a hard man to pin down — making his way from a bookstore clerk in Atlanta, to forklift driver, Con Ed roadside power lines crew, census worker, mentor to autistic children over the years, all the while recording from Tuscon to Lubbock, Alberta to San Fran to rural Washington to, now, Kingston, New York. Note one of his records has ever been panned by the critics, and yet, his reputation has never breached the levy that keeps fringe acts from the Starbucks crowd — less one brief glimpse at a broader audience when a particularly bleak and beautiful track made an unexpected appearance in a series of Volkswagen commercials years after its 1998 release.

With collaborators spanning from Calexico to members of Tortoise, the Sea and the Cake, Palace Brothers, Sonic Youth, to Guided by Voices, Sebadoh and more, Buckner has been making excellent music in excellent company for eighteen years, and now from his Kingston, New York home base, he joined the roster of the O+ Kingston 2012 where he performed at Kingston’s Old Dutch Church venue and received long-wanted dental care via O+’s wellness exchange. Since, Buckner has been a welcomed part of the O+ family. Above is his exclusive performance and interview for Kingston’s StudiO+, filmed and produced by O+ partners Evolving Media Network.

A version of this article by Alexandra Marvar appeared in the Kingston NY O+ 2012 program, published by Chronogram