When it comes down to gritty, soulful, and just plain fun songs about life, faded love, dirty laundry, broken hearts, trains, best friends, forgiveness, misplaced lovers, and redemption, nobody in folk music today does it quite the way Koop does. When he's performing, Koop is freewheeling, quick-witted, and engaging. He makes every person in the room feel like a brand new best friend and has the audience singing along and participating in the performance, creating memorable and special
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When it comes down to gritty, soulful, and just plain fun songs about life, faded love, dirty laundry, broken hearts, trains, best friends, forgiveness, misplaced lovers, and redemption, nobody in folk music today does it quite the way Koop does. When he's performing, Koop is freewheeling, quick-witted, and engaging. He makes every person in the room feel like a brand new best friend and has the audience singing along and participating in the performance, creating memorable and special moments and lasting connections. "Because that's what good folk music does. It connects us. . . "
Spanning a forty-year career of festivals, pubs, coffee shops, college campuses, wineries, and theaters, Koop has emerged as a regionally and nationally touring Americana artist with the release of his 2018 Up Close album featuring fourteen gritty, groovy, original songs.
The iconoclastic, bearded, storytelling songwriter is on another hot streak. From humble beginnings as a coffee-house-open-mic-night regular in the early ’80s, to the folk clubs on Austin’s famed Sixth Street, to Nashville’s Music Row, where he fed on heavy doses of twang, bluegrass, and folk music, throughout forty years of adventurous obscurity, to his more recent emergence as a regionally and nationally touring artist, Koop’s relentless pursuit of groove, grit, tone, and well-crafted lyrics have endeared him to audiences in the nooks and crannies of America. His shows are crowd-pleasing sing-alongs where new songs are often written on the spot, in the moment, together with the audience.
Koop's songs dive headlong into the verities and balderdash of the human condition, as he offers up his own inimitable take on the American folk/rock/blues/pop song. Sandusky, Ohio’s Funcoast Magazine called Koop “Proof that folk music is alive and well,” and Nashville insider Richard Helm called Koop a “Groove Dawg.”
In addition to playing solo shows, Koop performs with his duo, Free Wild and serves as a regional co-coordinator for the Nashville Songwriters Association International [NSAI]. Koop splits his time between Nashville, Gatlinburg, NW Ohio and the Cincinnati/ Blue Ash area, writing, co-writing, recording, and performing at wineries, festivals, breweries, listening rooms, house concerts, theaters, dive bars, coffee shops, and other places.
Koop is also a workshop presenter for songwriters, continuing legal education for attorneys, and corporate team-inspiring events.
