Robert Burke Warren (photo Juliet Lofaro/courtesy artist)
by Noah Peretz (Intern, the Rogovoy Report)
(SAUGERTIES, N.Y.) – Singer-songwriter, author, and all-around Renaissance man Robert Burke Warren will present his Big Birthday Shindig: An Evening of Songs, Stories, and Celebration at The Local in Saugerties, N.Y., on Saturday,March 30, at 8pm. The Hudson Valley-based Warren will perform a blend of original songs and select covers and sharing stories from his eclectic, colorful life and career, which has seen him work with RuPaul, collaborate with Rosanne Cash, tour with rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson, and play the lead role in the stage musical Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story.While Warren will mostly perform solo, he will be joined on a few tunes by pianist Dennis Yerry. The event also promises “surprises and special guests.”
Warren has released seven albums over his career as a songwriter, including five under the children’s music pseudonym Uncle Rock. He also hosts and performs tribute shows paying homage to the likes of Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, and Johnny Cash.
As a young artist in the mid-1980s, Warren performed in a band with prominent LGBTQ TV personality and performer RuPaul in New York City. In the 1990s, Warren was the bassist for multiple bands as well as the lead of the musical Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, in a production based in London. In the late 1990s, Warren met singer-songwriter Roseanne Cash, daughter of country music legend Johnny Cash. They struck up a friendship, and Warren ended up helping Cash compose songs on her Grammy Award-nominated album Rules of Travel. In 2000, Warren released his album … to this day to critical acclaim.
Robert Burke Warren (photo Gregg Segal/courtesy artist)
Along with his music career, Warren established himself as a prolific writer in the early 2000s, an additional career that has persisted to this day. He has written about music for Salon, Paste, and Vulture, among other publications. On his Substack, Robert Burke Warren, Showfolk he publishes personal essays, interviews with artists, and storytelling pieces recounting his emergence as a performer and recording artist.
Warren’s debut novel, Perfectly Broken, was published by The Story Plant in 2016. The novel is inspired by “people [he] could possibly know,” according to his website bio. Its setting not-so subtly mirrors Warren’s own move from New York City to the Catskills, and its lead characters are a musician and his family. Warren also compiled and edited Cash on Cash: Interviews and Encounters with Johnny Cash. , published by Chicago Review Press in 2020. The book is a compilation of interviews, feature news pieces, and articles about Cash, including some previously unreleased interview transcripts.