Eric Sherman is a multi-instrumentalist and composer. He specializes in farmer funk: food taken through the eardrums meant to build soils around the world.
Eric’s musical journey began in earnest with the help of someone who has sparked the musical pathways of many – Wynton Marsalis. It started with the classic 90’s VHS series “Marsalis on Music” and continued with dozens of trips to Alice Tully Hall in New York to catch the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra’s “Jazz For Young People” series. The trumpet quickly began Eric’s axe of choice throughout his childhood, acting real cool as his mom or dad zoomed him and his brother around to the hottest rehearsals, cutting it up with the other prepubescent instrumentalists of Westchester County.
Fast forward five years and you’ll find Eric glued to a television with a bass in hand digging into Rick Danko’s styles on “The Last Waltz”, or up in his room checking out Aston Barrett on Baylon By Bus and the left hand of Neil Evans on any Soulive record within reach.
This all led to some kind of musical explosion during Eric’s tenure at Wesleyan University. A day mightinclude arranging horns for the gospel choir, playing late night gypsy jazz in someone’s living room, co-leading a student-run salsa band, performing full Beatles albums outside every spring, studying drum and percussion traditions from West Africa and South India, and supplicating the deities of 3am dance parties with the giant experimental dub vehicle that is Buru Style. He couldn’t help himself from attaching more and more musical instruments onto his ego, so now he walks around with a marching drum, bass, guitar, trumpet, and tambourine. Look out for his trusted companion and confidante – Nirl the Squirrel Girl.
While playing music at all hours of the day and night proved to be rewarding, Eric managed to graduate college thinking that he didn’t have too many practical life skills, and so he put his belongings in his proverbial rucksack and headed out the country. Eric spent the better part of his 20’s working on small-scale agricultural operations around the Northeast United States, including Common Hands Farm, Hawthorne Valley Farm, and Mettabee Farm. During this time he made an average of 100 homemade pizzas a year with the fruits of his and his fellow agrarians’ labor.
Eric is fortunate to come from a family who loves music. After coming up on such classics as “Rock Around the Clock” and ‘Mercy Mercy Mercy”, the Sherman Family Band has since rocked many a dance floor full of screaming aunts and uncles.
Nowadays you can find usually him in the basements and bedrooms around Philadelphia, making records with other musical warriors that live in every corner of the city. Or you might find him around 1am in between the bass player and drummer at a jam somewhere.
Eric’s EP under his own name, “Erk’s Wrk”, was released in August 2018 and is available on all streaming platforms.
By day Eric is a nutrition and garden educator with the Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative, teaching and learning with high schoolers in West Philadelphia about food – what it is, how to grow it, cook it, and enjoy it.
