Draft:Erik Della Penna

Erik Della Penna (born 1965) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, lyricist, and session musician. He plays guitar, lap steel, banjo, and mandolin.

Della Penna has won two Drama Desk Awards and was nominated for two more. He has toured and recorded with Natalie Merchant, Joan Baez, Joan Osborne, Hazmat Modine, and Kill Henry Sugar. He co-composed the music and lyrics for the award-winning off-Broadway musical Dead Outlaw with David Yazbek.

Early Life
Della Penna was born in the Bronx, New York. He is of Italian-American descent. He began playing guitar in his early teens and studied guitar and music theory at The Mannes School of Music in New York City (now The New School), graduating with a BFA in Classical Guitar.

Musician
Della Penna began performing in New York City with various power pop bands that emerged from the New York arts scene in the late 1980s. In 1994 he joined rock/blues singer Joan Osborne's touring band for five years in support of her debut major-label album, Relish, and her sophomore album, Righteous Love. Della Penna toured and recorded with singer/songwriter Natalie Merchant for 26 years beginning in 1998 in support of eight of her albums, including Ophelia, Motherland, The House Carpenter's Daughter, Leave Your Sleep, and Keep Your Courage.

In 2001, he formed a "metropolitan folk" duo with drummer Dean Sharenow called Kill Henry Sugar, serving as its songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist. The Washington Post describes the band as having the ability to “wed intriguing lyrics to little textured grooves that have a habit of getting under your skin.”

In 2005, he joined the touring band of folk musician Joan Baez, performing with her until 2011. In 2013 he joined the blues/world music/roots band Hazmat Modine, described by The New York Times as a "category-defying blues-rooted group that can swerve into New Orleans brass-band, jazz, and ska."

As a musician, his playing has been described as "folksy but rapid-fire acoustic guitar that leads through rivers of well-timed but delightfully off-kilter lyricism" as well as "Appalachian banjo atmospherics" and "fuzz-tone guitar lament."

Songwriter
As a songwriter, Della Penna is known for his "curious tales," "low-fi storytelling,", "Steinbeck-eulogizing narratives" and "frighteningly memorable melodies." Della Penna cites as influences Leon Redbone, The Marx Brothers, Bob Dylan and David Bromberg.

"'When Leon Redbone was musical guest on ‘Saturday Night Live,' he revived that style of crooner and played guitar in a very simple, straightforward way...I was about 10 or 11, and thought that was just great. And I’m a big Marx Brothers fan, so I always had a quirky interest in that period. My parents were late adopters of Hippie culture, so I got a lot of first-hand Dylan and David Bromberg, and that period of folk revival.'"

Della Penna has written six albums for Kill Henry Sugar, has co-written four albums for Hazmat Modine, and has written two solo albums. He co-wrote four songs with Joan Osborne for Righteous Love, and co-wrote "Disney is the Enemy" with Mojo Nixon.

Composer & Lyricist
Della Penna wrote the music and lyrics for his first musical, Toby and the Big Top, in 2002. This children's musical was subsequently produced in 2003 by Walden Family Playhouse (Walden Media). In 2015, Della Penna wrote the music and lyrics for a second children's musical, Kitty Hawk, which was produced by the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. Over several years beginning in 2017, he co-wrote the music and lyrics for the musical Dead Outlaw with David Yazbek (book by Itamar Moses). It opened on February 28, 2024, at the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, New York City. It was a New York Times Critic's Pick and had its run extended. It received six Lucille Lortel Award nominations, two Drama League nominations, nine Outer Critics Circle Award nominations, and eleven Drama Desk Award nominations.