Passim Streams: Oliver Bates Craven

Watch Oliver Bates Craven perform from home during this time of social distancing! Donations will be split between the artist and Passim. Originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Oliver Bates Craven is a Nashville based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. The oldest son of a folk-singing preacher, his diverse musical upbringing included a family band, a decade of classical violin lessons, and ultimately skipping football practice to teach himself the guitar playing along to Hendrix records. Oliver has spent the last ten years as a professional musician, and from intimately crowded folk clubs to sold-out festivals, he has found himself on North American and European stages more than a thousand times.

A founding member of the revered Americana band The Stray Birds, he has collaborated with such artists as The Wood Brothers, Keller Williams, and Mandolin Orange, and worked in studios with producers such as Dan Knobler (Lake Street Dive, Rodney Crowell) and Larry Campbell (Bob Dylan, Levon Helm). Stepping out of the band dynamic squarely to the center of the stage, he finds a voice and a style more uniquely his own. Critic Michael T. Baker remarks, “Oliver is like if J.J. Cale and Bonnie Raitt had a son.” A poignant writer with soulful and powerful vocal and instrumental deliveries, accompanied by a dynamic sense of performance that honors nuance and originality, his musicality is one of a seemingly effortless focus and a clearly impassioned and tangible joy.