Tom Burris

While Tom Burris long hoped to make his living as a writer, somewhere along the line towards becoming a novelist he discovered songwriting, and literature's loss became the gain of the singer-songwriter community. Born and raised in New York City, Burris relocated to Boston in the early 1990's, where he had landed a position teaching creative writing and planned to begin serious work on his first novel. However, while working on his fiction, Burris began to develop an interest in songwriting; looking for an outlet for his new musical material, Burris began busking with an acoustic guitar in Harvard Square. As Burris became more serious about his songs, he formed a group (the first he ever worked with) called Jabbering Trout in 1995. The group developed a passionate local following, opened for the likes of Ani DiFranco and Jeff Buckley, and released two self-distributed CD's. However, Burris began to lose interest in the band after several years, and he decided to relocate to New York. Back home, Burris decided to take another stab at music, but this time as a solo act; much like his experience with Jabbering Trout, his performances on the city's songwriter-friendly club scene generated a great deal of positive word-of-mouth, and when a copy of one of the Jabbering Trout CD's caught the ear of producer John Alagia, he was impressed enough to track down Burris and offer his services as production for his first solo album. In 2002, Burris was signed to the recently reactivated Tomato label, and his first solo set, For Sale, was released in September of that year. ~ Mark Deming