Hailing from rural north Louisiana, Chris Canterbury, grew up midway between Austin, TX and Memphis, TN, with good books and bad movies as baby sitters. Somewhere along the way the books and movies gave way to words. Scrap paper, receipts, notebooks...any blank space was filled. When the words gave way, there was only one way for them to give: into song. Drawing equally from Sergio Leone's "uomo senza nome" and Warren Zevon's funny/scary baritone, Chris began to play his characters into life; line cooks, liquor store clerks, hapless romantics, and bad girls gone worse populate the bar rooms and bus stations of his songs. He approaches the homesick and the home free with the same wary eye, but gives them both a voice that aches to be heard.

Chris has played pool halls, beer joints, country clubs and the occasional turtle farm. He's no stranger to festivals, all-ages shows, and having to play the headliner on. He's opened for Reckless Kelly, the Eli Young Band, Wade Bowen, Charlie Robison, and Jonathon Tyler & the Northern Lights. Kevin Gordon has invited him on stage more than once, and he's also played with Jimbo Mathus, The Levees, Kenny Bill Stinson, Shannon McNally, and Blue Mother Tupelo. He'd fight Gary Louris if he met him, but would ask to open for him, just the same.

If you're lucky enough to catch a Chris Canterbury set, be sure to take a minute to talk to Chris after the show. Ask him why he doesn't like pennies. If you bum him a smoke or stand him a whiskey, he might even tell you.