finetune artist: Ralph Covert

b. 25 May 1968, USA. From 1987 onwards Covert began to make a name for himself as leader of Chicago's Bad Examples, whose attractive, intuitive pop records sold strongly in and around Illinois. These were released on Covert's own Waterdog Records, which he had established in 1991 in collaboration with Jay Whitehouse (of Whitehouse Records). Although highly popular in Chicago, the Bad Examples are best known internationally for the fact that local stadium rock heroes Styx included a version of Covert's song "Not Dead Yet' on their 1990 album, Edge Of The Century. Covert also records solo for the label and writes plays - his Sawdust And Spangles, penned in collaboration with G. Riley Mills, was inspired by the memoirs of nineteenth-century circus pioneer W.C. Coup and made its debut in May 1997. His first solo set, 1993"s Eat At Godot's, had failed to gain the recognition it deserved, largely owing to Landmark Distribution's untimely demise. It took both Covert and Waterdog Records some time to recover from this financial impasse. A second album, again resplendent in Squeeze/XTC-framed observational pop tunes, finally emerged in 1997. Its title was inspired by the fact that recording sessions had begun on the singer's birthday. Although the album represented an attempt to broaden his audience outside of America's Midwest, Birthday remained resolutely true to Covert's strengths - songcraft and honesty.

Listen to Ralph Covert at Finetune.

(2006) Ralph's World Green Gorilla Monster And Me

Dance Around
Me & My Invisible Friend
River Flow
I Dont Wanna
Monster