John Sieger

When you think Milwaukee and you also think songs, the little search engine that is your brain should automatically put John Sieger at the top of your list. His songs have been performed by over twenty of the best artists in the country, spanning a wide range of music styles from country to rock and soul with a norteño artist thrown in for good measure. Not only that, John has also made records with his bands The R&B Cadets [Top Happy on Twin Tone Records], Semi-Twang [Salty Tears on Warner Bros. Records] and as a solo artist with releases on smaller labels [Quiver on Recession Records and El Supremo on Faux Real].

His career began in the humble home of the Nash Rambler, Kenosha, Wisconsin. Smitten with Beatle-mania and Bob Dylan in high school, he formed a bunch of bands that concentrated heavily on original songs. This, of course, was exactly the wrong path to pursue in a heavily cover-band oriented scene, but this did not deter John or any of his bandmates. It was there that he fell in with Michael Feldman, a high school English teacher with a wicked sense of humor and now the host of Whad' Ya Know? on Public Radio International. They began a writing jag that continues to this day. Mike's witty lyrics and John's way with a melody were a match made in heaven.

After knocking around Kenosha for a while, John found his way to Milwaukee and his first taste of popularity with the well regarded R&B Cadets. If you are at all familiar with this sparkling sextet, you will recall packed dance floors and an unsurpassed songbook of soul classics mixed in with John's songs. The band included John's brother Mike, a great singer in his own right, Robin Pluer, Milwaukee's singing sweetheart and Paul Cebar, the funky, music-obsessed leader of The Milwaukeeans. During this period John won several WAMIs, (a very scaled-down Milwaukee version of the Grammys, but satisfying none the less). One group of admirers, The BoDeans, put his song The Strangest Kind on their debut record.

After the Cadets came to a somewhat uncomfortable end (don't worry, they've all kissed and made up as evidenced by sporadic reunion gigs), John fell in with Mike Hoffmann, and soldiered on with Semi-Twang, which included his brother Mike Sieger, in addition to Bob Jennings and Bob Schneider of the Cadets. They recorded one album for Warner Bros., Salty Tears, produced primarily by Mitchell Froom with a couple of tracks produced by Jerry Harrison. A very popular disc, at least with critics, sales of this record were so phenomenal that they dropped the band a year later, pretty much a standard record biz move. One positive development was John's introduction to a couple of producer/artists who snapped up his songs for artists like Dwight Yoakam, [I Don't Need It Done], Jerry Harrison [Rev It Up], and Tommy Conwell [She's Got It All, Do Right]. At about this time Etta James recorded Salty Tears, although the record got shelved. (If any of you out there in cyber space have a copy of this, please contact the management!)

As it seems to happen in so many stories, Nashville beckoned with the promise of big songwriting bucks. So John and his family, the lovely Linsey, his wife, and Sam, [also lovely and three-years-old] headed south. After six years of painful courtship, John and Nashville broke up, citing irreconcilable differences (John liked good country music and Nashville was more of a Fogelberg-obsessed locale). The move was not in vain, for it was there that John met and collaborated with many great writers including Robbie Fulks, Greg Trooper, Phil Lee, Joan Besen, Joy Lynn White, Gwil Owen, Gurf Morlix, and many others. He garnered one mainstream country cut, Let Me, written with and performed by Eric Heatherly. And his songs wound up on a bunch of independent label releases [see Discography].

Back in Milwaukee, John is keeping busy with a couple of bands, a fine Cajun outfit called Big Nick and The Cydecos and the aforementioned R&B Cadets. He is also at work on a new record, Seedy, a collection of songs written immediately after the 9-11 tragedy, and a new batch of Sieger-Feldman collaborations scheduled to be recorded with The Morells, the best roots-garage band in the world. John is also presenting a series of songwriting clinics in the Southeastern Wisconsin area.