"Lou Reed said it all: 'My life was saved by rock and roll,'" says Greg Trooper, "and I know hundreds of other musicians who feel the same way. Music is the thing that makes me want to get up and work. I've tried to do other things occasionally but always, always, always, my real passion is listening to, making and writing music." According to Trooper, music helps him exorcise his demons, offer gratitude for his blessings and encourages him to find the humanity and humor in everything. "I try not to take myself too seriously, because when it's all said and done, music is incredibly fun. I just want to express myself as a writer and have a ball while I'm doing it."

Trooper grew up in Little Silver, a New Jersey shore town where he learned to surf and play guitar when he was fourteen. Always a music lover, he and his Jersey pals would head into New York City every chance they'd get to catch shows. "We'd go anywhere to see a performer we liked. I went to the Concert for Bangladesh, I saw Merle Haggard and I even caught a double bill with Happy & Artie Traum and Patti Smith. I saw Bruce play with his band Steel Mill at Monmouth College. I just drank all that stuff up. As a slightly disaffected kid, music became the one thing that always interested me."

Trooper quit high school, played in local bands, got his GED and moved to Austin, TX. Already a fan of Texas songwriters, he crawled the clubs seeing Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson and other greats of early seventies Austin. He lived in a trailer park ­ "I was the only one there who wasn't either running from the law or 16 and pregnant" ­ worked odd jobs, played the clubs, drank too much and started writing songs. Some Jersey friends had migrated to Lawrence, Kansas and Trooper headed there, enrolling at the University of Kansas, studying English and music and playing in a local band. "We did obscure covers of artists we loved like Bobby 'Blue' Bland, Townes, Hank Williams, Van Morrison, etc. Being in school, doing lots of gigs throughout the midwest, gave me a little confidence and focus. I was writing more, and really digging it and wondering how I could keep doing my music 'when I grew up.' That's when I moved to New York."

He immersed himself in the New York music scene, started a band, worked a zillion odd jobs, got a publishing deal and released two albums ­ We Won't Dance in 1986 and Everywhere in 1992. Along the way he met and worked with great musicians (his long time band member Larry Campbell currently plays with Bob Dylan), picked up great reviews in the New York press, won a New York Music Award and started touring Europe and the States.

With a Nashville publishing deal, Trooper started going back and forth to Music City to write. "I worked with such great writers down here and it is a wonderfully 'writer friendly' city. There were top notch musicians everywhere you went and I figured that any place where John Prine, Lucinda Williams, Townes Van Zandt, EmmyLou Harris and Steve Earle lived had to be O.K." He moved to Nashville where he quickly established himself as an integral part of the Nashville roots rock community. Noises In The Hallway was released in 1995 and his 1998 release Popular Demons, produced by Buddy Miller, is one of the most widely praised and highly regarded albums of the current alt.country/Americana movement.

His fifth studio album, Straight Down Rain, produced by Phil Madeira, broke new ground for Trooper in the studio. "I was pretty wide open to Phil's suggestions and ideas and I really trusted his vision," Trooper says. "He brought out dimensions which I had never really explored in my past work." Madeira's approach in the studio, a contemporary sound with traditional instrumentation, gives this record an intensity and power which is perfectly suited to the material. Working with drummer Kenneth Blevins and bassist David Jacques, Madeira and Trooper show an impressive ability to find just the right sound for each song. Madeira contributes guitar and keyboards throughout the album. Guest artists include Julie Miller, Maura O'Connell, Steve Fishell, Claire Mullally and Bill Lloyd.

The more you listen to Floating, Greg Trooper's debut album for Sugar Hill Records, the more spare it seems--the instrumentation pared down, the lyrics arranged economically, in tidy sentences, with minimal adornment.

Which means, of course, that Floating is Trooper's most ambitious release. Each word he sings, every chord that the band plays, conveys more emotion than a landslide of adjectives let loose by less disciplined singer/songwriters. In language more conversational than literary, addressing issues that are both timely and timeless, in songs forged through real-world gigs and fed by folk tradition, Floating achieves a kind of artless artfulness, and reflects a self-awareness that's rare anywhere in music today.

The Dan Penn-produced Make It Through This World, Greg's 2005 Sugar Hill Records release, includes some warm Hammond (and other) organ sounds, the Goners’ Kenneth Blevins keeping time, tasty Bill Kirchen guitar licks, and Trooper’s trademark bullet-proof songs.

Greg Trooper has an amazing track record. He just keeps putting out good records; records you find yourself humming along to. His patented brand of country-tinged shuffles mixed with a sense of melodic folk is as comfortable as cuddling up with a great book. His artistic pedigree includes stints in New York, Austin, and Nashville, and it’s clear his effortlessness with a song is a direct result from quality experiences in all of those great music scenes.

Today Trooper is considered a "songwriter's songwriter" by industry insiders. Steve Earle, Billy Bragg, Maura O'Connell, Vince Gill, Robert Earl Keen, Lucy Kaplansky and numerous other artists in the U.S., Canada and Europe have recorded his songs. Having toured extensively for the last fifteen years, Trooper has established a reputation as an exuberant performer whose wit and vigor have charmed audiences across the country and Europe.

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