Chip "Dr. Horse-Hair" Cohen


 

Fiddler and guitarist Chip Cohen first broke into show business as a ventriloquist. A child prodigy, he appeared on both the Tonight Show and the Ed Sullivan show before his sixth birthday. At age nine, disillusioned with ventriloquism and its accompanying lifestyle, he quit to pursue his first love, roller derby. Twelve years later, at the peak of a brilliant career, he lost three toes to frostbite while panning for gold in the Yukon, never to skate again. He reluctantly returned to ventriloquism and began touring with Milli Vanilli. Between shows he taught himself to play the fiddle, and soon left Milli Vanilli to join Jim and Van Morrison's short-lived band, the Van Doors. He went on to record with George Strait and Marvin Gaye on their classic album, "Strait and Gaye".


      After working for years as a sideman, Cohen finally realized his true musical vision when he struck out with his own band, Barney Rubble and the Cosmic Cavemen. The Cavemen, later to achieve intergalactic prominence under the more commercially palatable name Philip Space and the Celestial Meatballs, pioneered the sound which has come to be known as neo-classic post-modern old-time new-age klezmer-cajun-surf-punk-grass.

     Chip currently resides in Eugene, Oregon with his three wives and eleven children. In his spare time he collects celebrities' toothpicks and raises weasels.
 
 

      But seriously, folks... Chip has been entertaining audiences across the United States since the 1970s with his fiddle and gutar. He has performed with such artists as the Holy Modal Rounders, the Johnson Mountain Boys, Ferlin Huskey, and Michelle Shocked. Best known for his old-time hoedown style of fiddling, he is also well versed in Cajun, Klezmer, and Irish fiddle, as well as classical guitar.

     Since arriving in Oregon in 1984, Chip has played with several Eugene and Portland based groups, including the Crawdads, the Peter Wilde band, Bayou Cadillac, and the Klezmonauts. In 2004 and 2005 his fiddle and guitar work were featured in Willamette Repertory Theatre productions of "Chaps" and "Always...Patsy Cline". His 1999 CD release, "Horsehair", a collection of originals and traditional tunes from around the world, was hailed by the Eugene Weekly as "a musical masterpiece".

     Chip currently lives in Eugene, Oregon, and performs around the Northwest with an assortment of bands, small groups, and as a soloist.

Discography

Chip Cohen, "Horsehair"
Bayou Cadillac, "Mixed Bag"
The Klezmonauts, self-titled
Sharon Rogers and Chip Cohen, "Old Time Music"
Cascadia Folk Quartet, self-titled
Holy Modal Rounders, "Are They Gone Yet?"
Crawdads of Pure Love, self-titled
Crawdads of Pure Love, "Electric"
Epicenter Stringband, "Harmonic Tremors"

To hear Chip's music, go to Chip's "myspace":
http://www.myspace.com/chipdrhorsehaircohen

Page last revised, Dec 5, 2006


 
 

You can contact Chip at:
172 N. Grand St.
Eugene, Or. 97402
(541)484-9818


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