The Songpoet

Eric Andersen is widely regarded as one of the most poetic songwriters that sprang from the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s. His artful mélange of love, despair, hope and stirred memory has earned him a passionate international following and the respect and admiration of artists ranging from Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen to Lou Reed and Wyclef Jean. The Songpoet offers a look into the mind, soul and creative process of this multifaceted, complex and singularly driven artist whose career saw great expectations waylaid by misfortune. Set against the backdrop of American folk music, The Songpoet follows Andersens 50-year journey that took him from the Beat coffeehouses in North Beach, San Francisco to the folk clubs in Greenwich Village, New York City, to Japan as the first American singer-songwriter to tour that country and ultimately to his home in the Netherlands and to Europe where he continues to write, record and perform as well as pursue his new found artistic passion for abstract photography. More than a biography, the film is also a statement on the culture of fame, the fragility of an artists career and the integrity of the artist.