Live Music Sunday

"…Kaplan is a cheeky songwriter with enough personality to stand out from the dulling crowd."
-Time Out New York

Originally from Long Island, Randy has lived and recorded in Los Angeles, Lawrence, Kansas and New Orleans. He has sung and played with Dan Bern and Eleni Mandell and toured throughout the United States. His fifth record, the double c.d. “Perfect Gentleman”, was released in December 2004 by Yellow Thing Records & Books.

In addition to his original songs, Kaplan specializes in American roots, delta blues, and traditional music. He now resides in Brooklyn and has appeared in New York at The Bowery Ballroom and The Bottom Line and was a regular at the original Sin-é.

Randy currently performs monthly at The Living Room.

www.randykaplan.com

About “Perfect Gentleman”:

“Over the past couple of years I’ve amassed a collection of cheap yard-sale organs,” Kaplan explains. “I used their built-in drum samples to create the rhythm tracks for the songs on Perfect Gentleman”. Randy utilizes these rock, jazz, waltz, swing, bossa nova, dixie, cha-cha, and rhumba beats to fashion songs ranging from simply-structured folk and country ballads to torch songs, lampoons, spirituals, and satires to songs with chromatic melodies, dissonant harmonies, and striking modulations. (Kaplan did all the arranging, performing, and engineering himself – except for his dog’s howling solo on “Off Limits”, a serendipitous perk of home recording.)

“…Randy's uniqueness and originality come from his uncanny ability to see his world and ours from almost any angle. These perspectives come together in a poetry of contradictions and complexities that are exposed through his hypnotic melodies and profoundly intimate lyrics. His literary yet accessible songs capture ambivalence and investigate the inner lives of human beings in the tradition of Leonard Cohen or Stephen Sondheim.” -Kriselen.com

ALL MUSIC, READING AND GALLERY EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

THE HALF KING IS LOCATED AT 505 WEST 23RD STREET,
LOCATED JUST WEST OF 10TH AVENUE, 212/462-4300.