Aaron Lee Kaplan at Pioneer Place

Aaron Lee Kaplan is a guitarist and singer/songwriter from Marshfield, WI. He describes his music as Twisted Blues & Eclectic Americana. He has been gaining a reputation throughout the Midwest for his slide and fingerstyle guitar playing and his humorous yet thought-provoking original songs. Kaplan usually performs as a one-man-band by using foot percussion to fill out his sound. Kaplan has been performing for over 20 years in a wide variety of genres, both as a solo artist and with various groups. He incorporates this experience and his diverse influences into an original style based in American Roots music yet progressive in scope. He uses blues and folk music as a framework to experiment and play with the conventions of the genre. He regularly employs dissonance and chromatic passages to create tension and humor in his music. As a lyricist, Kaplan is often philosophical and touches on deep themes such as mortality, identity, mental illness, addiction, and the meaning of human experience. He uses dark humor; word play and at times abstract imagery to explore these themes in an original and deeply personal way. In September 2017, Kaplan released his EP Some Sunny Day. One of the songs from that EP, It Is What It Is, was included on the Wisconsin Roots Music Co-Op 2019 Compilation CD. In March 2020, he released his album Dairyland, a collection of original guitar instrumentals inspired by life in Wisconsin. His latest album, Smiley’s Blues, was released in December 2022. All these releases have been well received by audiences and have received regional radio airplay. Kaplan is currently performing throughout the Midwest and in the planning stages for recording a new album.