John Fullbright burst upon the Southwest music scene in 2009 with a stellar live album recorded at the Blue Door, the legendary venue in Oklahoma City. From his home in Okemah, Oklahoma—also the hometown of Woody Guthrie—Fullbright had already honed his songwriting and playing skills to a degree that he was a favourite at festival camp grounds before he was even out of high school. Quickly produced as a “calling card” for the 2009 Folk Alliance Conference, Live at the Blue Door went on to set sales records at WoodyFest, the annual folk festival honouring Woody Guthrie.

With his band, shooting the first video for “From the Ground Up”
In the intervening years, Fullbright has opened for a host of folk and Americana names—including Jimmy Webb, Joe Ely, Kevin Welch, Michael Fracasso, and Steve Poltz—from Oklahoma to Europe and back.

With the 2012 release of From The Ground Up, Fullbright, still in his early twenties, has joined the conversation about the best new artists in music today. Firmly rooted in a variety of musical styles, he draws on what has come before, but without imitation. Forget labels when you listen to John Fullbright. He is not folk, not Americana and not pop, but possibly the best fusion of them all.

In the Grammy-nominated From the Ground Up, Fullbright traverses an emotional and musical terrain that is extremely broad, showing equal acuity with tender ballads and songs that make you want to drive faster with the windows rolled down. Fullbright’s earliest songwriting heroes, Townes Van Zandt and Mickey Newbury, infuse this record, but so do Jimmy Webb, Randy Newman, and many of Fullbright’s songwriting compatriots from Oklahoma and Texas.

Fullbright co-produced the album—the photo on the cover shows him on the front porch of the house where both he and his father grew up—with the owner of 115 Studios in Norman, Okla., Wes Sharon, who also played bass on the album. Fullbright played many of the instruments on the album: all of piano and harmonica, almost all of the organ parts and much of the guitar work. Musicians from the legendary to the infamous lent their talents: Terry “Buffalo” Ware and Andrew Hardin added guitar, while Fats Kaplin played violin and steel guitar. Other musicians on the album are Giovanni Carnuccio III (drums), John Knudson (organ), Jess Klein (background vocals) and Ryan Engleman (guitar).