About
Answering The Call
Never bought, never sold like a wild animal with spears and ropes in your side – you press on
– Canary
Caleb Stine is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist. Though he makes his living as a folk musician, Stine wouldn’t call what he does a job; he considers it a calling. His work is part-mystic poet, part-traveling preacher. As Americana UK observed, “Stine’s upfront personality [is] seeking to make a personal connection with everyone in the venue.” The albums and shows are the tip of the iceberg; to get to where he is today, Stine has put in decades of daily practice, day jobs, and deep commitment to the craft of music. “There’s an element of endurance to almost everything I do,” says Stine, who plays 100+ shows a year, has released 14 albums of original music, and shares a series of viral Instagram videos called “Caleb Stine Says Keep Going,” encouraging followers to dig deep into a creative practice of their own. Over the course of his career, he’s seen the music industry collapse and restructure multiple times, but it’s his love of music that’s allowed him to outlast so many peers and institutions along the way. And it’s this love of music that shines through his shows, imbuing them with a communal joy that spans generations and celebrates life at its most essential.
I guess I never could let go my first love from long ago
Once I heard that music playing, my heart was swept and gone
– The Eternal Present
Raised in Colorado Springs, Stine grew up in a house filled with records and books, looking out on a rocky landscape smudged with shadow and light. Both the inner and outer landscape lent itself to wonder and from a young age, Stine sought a form to express it. At the age of 12, Caleb asked his mother if he could get the guitar out. She showed him the four chords she remembered from a long-ago lesson and then drove to the store. By the time she returned, with her arms full of groceries, Caleb Stine had written his first song. He continued writing and playing through high school, sharing his earliest songs at open mics and using the earnings from his job at McDonalds to buy a four-track recorder. These self-motivated efforts early on established a lifelong love of the recording process so that by the time he was making albums professionally in his twenties, he’d already DIY-recorded a dozen. But to get to that point, he knew he first had to strike out on his own. It was the early influence of troubadours Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and Townes Van Zandt that set Stine’s eyes to the horizon and filled him with longing: to make music – and a life – beyond the skyline of what he knew.
I hollered out at life just to see what life might bring
It brought me flowers and canyons
It brought me highways and companions
And a yearning for everything
– Daniel Boone
A meandering road trip took Stine from Colorado to Baltimore, where he felt like he stumbled on a secret: a vibrant artistic community in action. He put down roots, worked on film sets by day to free up his nights for shows, and eventually formed a band called The Brakemen (the subject of 2016’s documentary, “It Would Not Let Me Be”). From his earliest shows in 2004, he’d champion Baltimore as America’s best-kept secret and his cult-like fanbase there would champion him with the same moniker. “You can have a career in music,” Stine says, “if you spend 20 years investing in a place and its people.” Stine has played almost every school, every park, every dive bar. He’s played the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and the Duck Pin Bowling Alley, Campden Yards and Andy Nelson’s BBQ. He’s played weddings and funerals, kids’ birthday parties and cat food shop anniversaries. His shows often resemble family reunions – or what people wish their family reunions felt like. It’s clear many fans attend to get a shot of humanity, to be reminded that who they are and what they do matters. That’s one of Caleb Stine’s strong suits. He sings Happy Birthday to fans. He takes children’s requests. He plays his hit song, “Butter,” and later, when someone shows up late and requests it, he plays it again. In 2009 The Baltimore Sun deemed Stine the “lynchpin of the Baltimore folk scene” and in 2022, he received the Dave Giegerich Award for Excellence In The Community at the Charm City Bluegrass Festival. In return, the city has served as his creative cocoon for two decades, supporting him as he’s made album after album, collaborated on project after project, exploring the outer limits of what it means to be a folk artist.
We’re here Saturday to Friday – country, blues and rock and roll
We even got a record on the radio
– Saturday to Friday
Ever the compulsive writer, by 2005, Stine had a batch of songs that were the best of his best. He called Clean Cuts, a local recording studio, to find an engineer up to the task. “A guy just moved here from Chicago,” the voice on the other end said. “This sounds like his kind of project.” So began Stine’s decades-long collaboration with engineer and producer, Nick Sjostrom. They’d go on to make countless albums together and – when The Brakemen’s bass player, Andy Stack, went on tour with his new duo, Wye Oak – Sjostrom joined the band. The result of that phone call was October 29th, recorded in a church on Stine’s birthday in 2005. The next record, I’ll Head West Again (2008), included his first radio hit – “Come Back Home,” a duet with Jenn Wasner (the other half of Wye Oak). That same year, Baltimore’s college radio station, WTMD, organized a collaboration between Stine and local rapper, Saleem Heggins. This resulted in an album, Caleb & Saleem, as well as a public art sculpture at the train museum, placement on CNN and widespread acclaim. Stine then built his sound all the way out for 2009’s folk-rock Eyes So Strong and Clean and stripped it all the way back for 2010’s highly acclaimed I Wasn’t Built For A Life Like This. 2011’s Songs of Woody And Cisco was the result of his role as Cisco Houston in the Off-Broadway hit, “Woody Guthrie Dreams” followed by 2012’s The Fall Of The Rebel Angel, recorded with producer Travis Kitchens and printed on 100 CD copies. No matter the scope or genre of the project, a through-line remained consistent: Stine’s crystal clear lyricism and the depth of wisdom beyond his years. As No Depression wrote: “His honest stories and thoughtful poetry place Caleb among some of the best songwriters of this time and could possibly make him the 21st Century Townes Van Zandt.”
Freedom is a luxury hard to come across and if you ever find it
You’re gonna have to be your own boss.
– Juniper Antenna
2014 marked a line in the sand for Stine. After burning the candle at both ends touring, acting off-broadway, working in film, and living on the road, he decided if he was going to make it as an artist he needed to reprioritize, to make sacrifices for the art so the art wouldn’t suffer. Two guiding principles led him: keep a low overhead and stay true to his artistic integrity. The result was the album Maybe God Is Lonely Too, a deep, meditative collection recorded on a four track recorder in his row house, harkening back to the initial joy he felt in the creative process of his Colorado bedroom. From there, he buckled down on making creative decisions that felt true and exciting to him as opposed to lucrative or trendy. Whether getting mainstream recognition or not, he kept going: expanding his sound, delving into new themes and teaming up with a rotating cast of talented friends in the Baltimore scene. For 2015’s Americana-Rock Time I Let It Go, Stine collaborated again with The Brakemen – Burke Sampson, EJ Thompson and Nicholas Sjostrom. For 2018’s lush concept album Moon, he handed over the role of producer to friend and fellow musician, Kenny Liner. In 2019 he recorded the psychedelic Mystic Country with a new constellation of Baltimore luminaries he deemed “The Revelations.” In 2020, he took to the countryside to make the bluegrass-tinged Life And Times Of A Handyman alongside friends, Nicholas Sjostrom, Laura and Kagey of The Honey Dewdrops and Audrey Hamilton. 2022’s timeless Outlaw In Your Mind featured an assortment of Baltimore musicians spanning the decades, including drummer and frequent collaborator, Jim Hannah. The cover photography, captured by Tim Newby, shows Stine in a fitting scene: playing guitar on a friend’s rooftop, the Baltimore skyline luminous behind him. Outlaw marked another line in the sand as a current-day Stine sets his sights to both Baltimore and beyond.
You can be an outlaw in the outskirts of your mind.
You can be a poet in the parking lots of time.
You can be a rebel in the ruins left behind.
You can be an outlaw in your mind.
– Outlaw
Stine’s impact has reached beyond Baltimore for years now, playing community spaces throughout the region, from Cape May, NJ to Maryland’s Eastern Shore to the Shenandoah Valley. He’s brought his high-energy and heartfelt shows to the renowned stages of Delfest, Floydfest and Red Wing Roots Music Festival. He’s opened for the likes of Los Lobos, Jason Isbell, and Sam Bush. He’s created soundtracks for award-winning documentaries such as Healing Neen (2009), Agave (2017), and The Body Politic (2023). But Stine is still more interested in expanding as an artist than in seeking fame or notoriety. He’s playing the long game, measuring success with a different yardstick than the one handed out by the industry. Alongside his music career, Stine maintains a daily visual art practice. He’s published five issues of his comic series, “Congratulations, You’re Human,” and created the artwork for many of his albums. In 2022, he was invited to exhibit a solo show of his paintings in Harrisonburg, VA, including “The Road To Damascus,” a 5 x 7 foot impressionist painting that took six and a half years to make. If there’s one thing Stine’s not afraid of, it’s taking his time. He playfully refers to himself as “The John Prine of 2029.” In other words, his best years are ahead of him. “They won’t know about me until I’m fifty,” Stine jokes. “And I’m fine with that.” In the meantime, he’s going to do what he does best: keep going.
How could you know something so small could crack you open like a cannonball? Crack you open, open so wide that I’ll meet you on the other side?
– 14 Miles
Caleb Stine’s album, When I Was A Cowboy, is about crossing thresholds. Stine recorded and produced the the album himself while waiting on the birth of his first child. Over the ten tracks, he turns a clear eye both forward and back with depth, humor, wisdom, and poetry. “Daniel Boone” and “Ragged and Real” are fresh reworkings of previously recorded Stine songs, while “No Way Out (You Ain’t Already Heard Of)” and “Cold Glass Of Water” feel like they could be a hundred years old. “Silver Fox” celebrates a beloved mentor while providing a welcome take on aging: “The older you get,” he sings over a fuzzy groove, “the more you do.” The laid-back drive of “Have Guitar, Will Travel” elicits JJ Cale-comparisons and highlights Stine’s sense of playfulness and humor. The excellently produced, “Cowboy, Part 1” completes the trilogy of archetypes from his previous two albums (Handyman, Outlaw, Cowboy) while the film-like “Cowboy, Part 2” highlights the sensibilities that made Stine so successful at composing soundtracks. The album ends with “If I Could Catch Moonlight,” a love song featuring lush strings and some of Stine’s finest writing to date. The singer has taken on the rocky terrain of life and the listener has traveled the sonic landscape. Both are rewarded with the love that, Stine has us believing, waits for all of us on the other side.
When I Was A Cowboy, his 14th album, comes out in July, 2024.
BALTIMORE MAGAZINE: Caleb Stine Interview
BALTIMORE SUN: Caleb Stine & The Brakemen Documentary Premiers In California
CITY PAPER — ‘Reckless Hope: Caleb Stine’s new album stares into the void, offers solutions’