181 State St
Portland, ME 04101
USA
Reed Foehl’s New England upbringing had the usual trappings of life in a rural outpost in those parts in the 1970s and 1980s – Red Sox and Bruins games on the family television, family walks in the woods in the Fall, and family trips into town for cultural events… but there were some notable exceptions which transformed his sleepy hometown into a musical fantasyland of five-part harmony and the rejoice of best friends – his parents and their talented friends, namely – holding weekly band practice at home every Thursday night, bringing the sounds of country-bluegrass music to the suburbs of Boston.
Having been exposed so often to the music his parents loved gave Foehl the opportunity to explore those musical tendencies and to also starting discovering his own tastes and style. Before he was a teenager, he would become a hired street performer in Boston’s famed Faneuil Hall.
At age 16, Foehl received one of his most significant endorsements to date. It was the kind of outlier moment he never could have imagined would happen: his hockey player pal Billy Conway – now known internationally as the late great artist, musician, drummer, producer, songwriter, and rancher – put his arm on Reed’s shoulder while the friends were enjoy a walk in the woods and asked him the pointed question: When are you going to start writing your own songs? It was a turning point Foehl holds dear to this day and it was a friendship that would endure over the next four decades, right up until Conway’s passing in December 2021.
It wouldn’t be long after the pivotal moment on that walk that Foehl would uproot from New England and move to Boulder, Colorado, where he would form the socially-concious jamband Acoustic Junction with his younger brother Stewart and another Massachusetts native, Jeff Haycock. The band made an immediate impact on the local music scene and is still celebrated in the Boulder area today as one of the true pioneers of roots music there, along with peers such as Leftover Salmon, The Samples, and String Cheese Incident. Acoustic Junction would go on to release five records, sign a major label deal, and tour relentlessly through the 1990s and the band played its final concert at the historic Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, MA, in the Fall of 2000.
Now known for his enduring solo work, Foehl has seven solo records to his credit. In recent years, he has called on Americana Music chart-toppers The Band of Heathens out of Austin, Texas, to make two sensational records out of their Finishing School Studio; not only did members of BOH produce the records – Lucky Enough in 2019 and Wild Wild Love in 2022 – but they also lend their expert skills as the studio band. Foehl has also collaborated with artists such as Frasey Ford, Gregory Alan Isakov, Todd Snider, and Anais Mitchell. Additionally, the Wild Wild Love LP includes the track “Fly,” a co-write with Brent Cobb in Nashville which was later recorded by Lee Ann Womack and included on her smash record of 2014, earning the writing pair a GRAMMY nomination.
From backyards and barn concerts to performing on stages at venues like Red Rocks and having artists like Kenny Aronoff and Graham Nash appear on his records, Foehl is a workhorse musician who loves being a part of the community of songwriters making great art today.
Today, he resides happily in southwestern Vermont.
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