Local Singer-Songwriter Jerry Popiel To Release New Northeast Ohio-Themed EP

Local singer-songwriter Jerry Popiel has had a busy year. He says he’s played more than 50 shows so far and has particularly enjoyed performing on the Viking cruise ships when they visit Cleveland, Detroit and Windsor.

He also found time to record Edgewater, a new folk-rock EP, and hopes he’s captured what life is like on the shores of Lake Erie on the forthcoming album due out Nov. 1. He plays a release party on Friday, Oct. 25, at Collison Bend Brewery.

With its decidedly old-school, “anti-artificial intelligence” approach, the album conjures up sounds of 1970s songwriters while exploring “rust belt landscapes and Great Lakes shorelines.”

“I don’t know if I qualify as ‘intelligence, ’but I’m definitely not artificial,” says Popiel in a press release about the new tunes. “In an era where it’s possible to make any sound on earth by pressing buttons on a computer, it’s more important than ever to be authentically human. This EP was made by a real human — me — playing real instruments in real time. It’s as analog as possible.”

The song “Crooked Creek” references waterways such as French Creek, Rocky River, Vermilion River, and the track “Edgewater” finds Popiel pining for mayflies, cottonwoods, driftwood and “old El Caminos sitting in the driveway.” On “Collision Bend,” Popiel tells a story of tugboat crews working the Cuyahoga River.

The EP closes with The Wreck of the El Faro,” a nod to Popiel’s Coast Guard days and a tribute to the true story 2015 sinking of the eponymous cargo ship during Hurricane Joaquin.

Popiel performed all instruments on the EP, including acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, bass guitar, drums, piano, organ, harmonica and vocals. He recorded, mixed and mastered the EP at his home studio located here in Cleveland.

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