Bruce Archer plays a smoky, primitive Americana infused with blues, bluegrass, country, folk, and rock influences. His finger picking and slide guitar styles merge 40+ years of playing and sifting through musical genres with his Iowa roots and his years in the Minneapolis alt-rock scene into instrumental and vocal performances that are both gritty and authentic.

Masterful finger-picking and slide guitar punctuate the highly autobiographic lyrics of his latest release, THE HALLOWED LAND. This eclectic, sometimes rollicking, sometimes reflective, genre-bending album is a paean to traditional story-telling.

There have been plenty of highs and few lows—from open mic nights in college to forming and writing for bands that regularly played high profile alt-music clubs in Uptown, Downtown and West Bank Minneapolis, to returning to solo gigs in the north woods of Minnesota.

He's enjoyed playing with some topnotch musicians and, occasionally, moved on through collaborations that just didn’t work. Archer has opened for legendary bass guitarist Ronnie Lane (Small Faces), the Uppity Blues Women, the Jayhawks, the Gear Daddies’ frontman Martin Zellar, the Phones, and Run Westy Run—to name a few.

Yet through it all, he has relied on his Iowa roots and sense of who he is. Archer brings a raw authenticity to his gigs, which are best suited to listening environments.

Click on the Contact link and let him know if you have a venue or event that's a good fit for his "blue folk" style.