Biography

A Brief History of the American Circus

Curtis Eller is a banjo player, songwriter, and rock & roll singer. The beloved show business veteran started his career at the age of seven as a juggler and acrobat, but has since turned to the banjo because that's where the money is. The iconoclastic troubadour has spent thirty years relentlessly touring the burlesque houses, beer halls, underground theatres, and punk rock shitholes of North American, Europe, and Australia, where his legendary shows once earned him the title, “New York’s angriest yodeling banjo player”.

His band, The American Circus, has developed a devoted international following based on spellbinding stage performances that combine compelling songcraft with silent film style, physical comedy, and explosive rock & roll energy. The band has released a string of strange and compelling, phonograph recordings that present a dreamlike vision of American history where all points in time have collapsed into one. Fans of past recordings have come to expect a hallucinatory, historical landscape populated by corrupt 19th century politicians, faded Hollywood stars, two-bit prize fighters and frequent, inexplicable visits from Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon. The ever-evolving cast of musicians spares no effort in their quest to bring Eller’s historically evocative compositions to vivid, cinematic life.

Band Members Past and Present

Currently Serving Members: Stacy Wolfson (harmony), Hugh Crumley (bass), Stephen Cowles (saxophone & flute), Andy Lyth (drums)

Guest Players and Alumni: Dana Marks, Jack Fleishman, Charlie Tophill, Bradley Blackwell, Kai West, Matthew Rheeston, Rima Fand, Liisa Yonker, Marilee Eitner, Pete Marshall, Virginia Scare, Shea Broussard, Louis Landry, Danny Grewen, William Dawson, Robert Cantrell, Chris Moore, Gary Langol, Douglas Vuncannon, Terry Lonergan, Elizabeth Walsh, Adam Budofsky, Michael Plunkett, Timothy Kiah

Would you like to join the band? Drop us an EMAIL