Chris Acker & the Growing Boys with Creekbed Carter Hogan

In a genre full of tall tales and marketable lies, New Orleans’ Chris Acker crafts candid songs — weaving his wit and woes into a body of work that exposes the stale plight of the American Songster to the honest, and sometimes hilarious, light of day.

In the tradition of Guthrie and Prine, Chris lends a quavering voice to the half-rotten romance of the unremarkable and unrefined. Regardless if you’re sitting by a backyard fire on a muggy Louisiana night or standing stage-side in some far flung town, when you hear Chris Acker playing, you’re hearing the end result of countless hours of observing the masters of the craft…and the end result of repeating their mistakes.

From the folk revival through the golden age of country music, deafened by punk shows and brass bands alike, Chris’s songwriting is a nod to the absurd yet muted brilliance that inhabits the molded corners of the bars he patrons and cratered street he treads, paired with a pained honesty that merits a long second look.

Acker released his fourth full-length album, Famous Lunch, on Gar Hole Records in October of 2024. Famous Lunch contains some of his best work yet: laid back, country-rockers like “Wouldn’t Do For You (Buddy)” and “Shit Surprise” (which Paste Magazine called a “song of the year contender” in 2024), a few raucous, bar-ready joints like “Don’t You Know (Who I Think I Am)” and “Bunn Machine”, and tender, folky triumphs like “Stubborn Eyes” and “Eyelash”, all showcasing Chris’ gift of building “vivid scenes at an impressively low word count” (No Depression).

Acker tours solo or with his band The Growing Boys — Zach Thomas (bass), Nikolai Shveitser (pedal steel), Dave Hammer (guitar, vocals), Sam Gelband (drums, vocals), and occasionally Howe Pearson (piano).

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“There’s no fiction as strange as America’s current Dantean hellscape and Creekbed Carter’s the kind of artist to help us navigate it.” — Devon Leger, Songlines Magazine

The music of Creekbed Carter Hogan (he/they) is a quiet act of defiance made at the end of your rope. It is the warm feeling of solidarity coursing through your body as you link arms with strangers. It is a hard-won laugh, brittle but brave, in the face of what hurt you the most. It is finding hope where there is none, asking questions when you’re told to stay quiet, demanding a future you believe in, and facing a world hellbent on destruction with community, enthusiasm, and joy.

Armed with compassion, curiosity, and a rollicking sense of humor, Hogan has charmed audiences across the USA and the EU/UK, honing their performance and craft as they’ve shared stages with other fan favorites like labelmate Nick Shoulders, Emmylou Harris, Big Richard, Willi Carlisle, and Olive Klug. In addition to being a musician, Carter is also a fiction writer and educator, and this triad of practices helps him ask better questions to learn better lessons.

Hogan’s songs have always achieved the rare feat of braiding the personal and the political as a means of bringing people together. Now, with their second studio album PEASANTS REVOLT (out with Gar Hole Records in 2026), Hogan hones their trademark poetics and traditional fingerstyle to present a medieval-Americana manuscript of apocalypse and everyday survival. There is always more to learn, and more work to do to get there; but whether it’s a 14th century riot of peasants, a 20th century miner’s strike, or our modern-day hell, PEASANTS REVOLT was made to help us sing for our supper so we can reclaim a better world for ourselves.

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