A Catch Conversation with Glenn Kaiser

Glenn Kaiser has been singing the blues - and sometimes soul, R&B or rock - since he was twelve years old.

Growing up in a poor family living hand-to-mouth in central Wisconsin, Glenn eventually gravitated to Milwaukee’s local music scene where he fronted over a dozen bands, as well as writing and performing solo acoustic music, all before turning nineteen years of age. With his adolescence plagued by drug and alcohol abuse, Glenn got clean through following Jesus after a life-changing spiritual confrontation right around his eighteenth birthday. During this time his music got heavier and in many ways, deeper. His former song writing motif of celebrating drugs, sex and other vices gave way to lyrics about spiritual struggles: personal temptation, institutional sin, poverty, exploitation, racism, materialism and other issues that few musicians seemed willing to tackle.

Now after more than three decades of making original music, Kaiser is known for his raw, bluesy vocals, firey guitar playing, bottleneck slide and harmonica work on thirty recordings and innumerable live shows. Glenn and his family have lived in Chicago’s inner city for over thirty years doing mission work with people who live as he once did.

Kaiser has released several acoustic-based cds in between his electric blues and blues/rock albums. His seminal delta blues projects “Trimmed and Burnin’” and follow-up “Slow Burn” (both with harp-player/singer Darrell Mansfield) established him as a singular and authentic christian bluesman. Three contemporary worship albums along with the folk-pop “Time Will Tell”, fill out the acoustic discography. Acoustic cuts also comprise half of Kaiser’s critically acclaimed “Ripley County Blues” project recorded in a log cabin lodge in rural Missouri.