BIO (SHORT): Reed Turchi is a GRAMMY Award Winning, EMMY Award Nominated musician and poet from Swannanoa, North Carolina, who first learned to play guitar in North Mississippi from RL Burnside’s longtime sideman Kenny Brown, and who has been touring the US and Europe since 2010.
Hailed by the Oxford American as an artist “beyond genre constraints,” Turchi’s signature "slide guitar & kudzu boogie" sound has been celebrated by Rolling Stone as "a burst of blues rock…both spontaneous and crafted," as "vital, live, and essential" by Living Blues Magazine, and has been featured by NPR, PBS, KEXP, American Songwriter, Daytrotter, No Depression, and many more.
WORLD ON FIRE, Turchi's latest album, was declared "a striking exercise in inspired simplicity" by No Depression, and explored a more intimate atmosphere, reminescent of Muddy Waters' "Folk Singer" acoustic album and Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska." American Blues Scene hailed the album as "a hypnotic blend of slide-guitar and snare-brush rhythm," while Pop Matters said listening to it is "like listening to an old 78rpm blues recording without the scratches and static."
PRESS PHOTOS
STAGEPLOT
PRESS QUOTES
“A BURST OF BLUES ROCK…BOTH SPONTANEOUS AND CRAFTED.”
— ROLLING STONE
“VITAL, LIVE, AND ESSENTIAL”
— LIVING BLUES MAGAZINE
“BEYOND GENRE CONSTRAINTS”
— THE OXFORD AMERICAN
Bio (Long): Reed Turchi is a musician, poet, and producer from Swannanoa, North Carolina, now living in Brooklyn.
His music has been featured in Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, No Depression, and The Oxford American, among others, and his poetry has been published in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Narrative Magazine, The Los Angeles Review, and more.
Turchi is a mostly self-taught guitarist, though his initiation to slide-guitar came first hand in North Mississippi where he spent time with Kenny Brown (RL Burnside's longtime guitarist), learning "in osmosis" in exchange for shoveling out beagle runs and other time-tested techniques.
More officially, Turchi earned his MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College, where he was awarded the Ellen Bryant Voigt Scholarship, and he is also received support and fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers Conference, The Vermont Studio Center, and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
In the world of music, Turchi has worn many hats — beginning with founding and operating his "Devil Down Music" record label (focused on North Mississippi Blues), which released albums by Mississippi Fred McDowell, "Little" Joe Ayers," Kenny Brown, a co-release with The North Mississippi Allstars, and compilations from The North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic. The label was active from 2010 to 2014, and earned accolades internationally, and Turchi recorded all of the albums with a portable recording rig in the back of his car.
In 2012 Turchi was hired as Label Director by Ardent Studios in Memphis to revive and rebuild its record label, and he successfully signed the Austin-based band Greyhounds, as well as coordinating a release with Low Cut Connie. Spotify was introduced to the US market around this time, and with the massive change to the revenue of recorded music the label faced many challenges within the Ardent Studio business model.
Turchi resigned from Ardent following the death of owner/founder John Fry, and in 2016 moved to Nashville to focus solely on his original music, as well as producing albums and increasing his touring from 50+ days a year (since 2012) to over 100 dates per year, as he signed with Atomic as booking representation.
This relentless touring came to an abrupt halt with the outbreak the COVID-19, and when Turchi attempted to resume touring in fall of 2021 (having signed with Pivotal Touring) he quickly became severely ill, which began a nearly two-year touring hiatus as his medical condition worsened.
Turchi had begun his MFA Program in July 2020, and as he neared graduation in August of 2022 he, despite his illness, relocated to Brooklyn, where he was eventually successfully diagnosed with a strange form of Crohn's disease, which he focused on recovering from, as well as establishing local monthly performing residencies with his new, New York-based ensemble as well as a rotating cast of special guests.
In March of 2023 Turchi was hired at GSI Studios in Manhattan to help revive the studio from its COVID-era dormancy, and in February 2024 Turchi and GSI-founder Austin White came to an agreement that would see Turchi launch a new studio (Second Take Sound) in the GSI Studio space, officially opening May 1, 2024.
Second Take Sound was home to six Grammy-Nominated projects in its first eighteen months of existence, and Turchi launched back on the road in 2025 supporting "World on Fire," his first studio album since COVID, his illness, and his move to NYC.
Along with his music, poetry, and owning/operating of Second Take Sound, Turchi is the co-editor of The Swannanoa Review, a literary journal.
In 2026 Turchi is looking forward to the release of a new live album, new studio album, new collaborative album with the poet Reginald Dwayne Betts, a release of his own spoken-word poetry album in collaboration Art Edmaiston, and much more to come.