Jeff Hanson (March 3, 1978 – June 5, 2009) was a singer-songwriter, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist,Son CD – Kill Rock Stars Press Release no 388
. Retrieved April 12, 2014.Jeff Hanson: Haunting Songs, interview by Jane Kelly
. Retrieved April 12, 2014. whose voice was described in a 2005 '' Paste'' review as an "angelic falsetto, a cross between

Alison Krauss Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer and musician. She entered the music industry at an early age, competing in local contests by the age of 8 and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with ...

and

Art Garfunkel Arthur Ira Garfunkel (born November 5, 1941) is an American singer, poet, and actor. He is best known for his partnership with Paul Simon in the folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. Highlights of Garfunkel's solo music career include one top-10 h ...

that is often (understandably) mistaken for a female

contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typica ...

". Hanson's vocal style is sometimes compared to Elliott Smith's.

Early life

Hanson was born in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

and raised in

Waukesha, Wisconsin Waukesha ( ) is the county seat of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States. It is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. Its population was 71,158 at the 2020 census. The city is adjacent to the Village of Waukesha. History The area tha ...

. In a lengthy interview for the now defunct daily online magazine Splendid, he said:

"I grew up in a musical house. My parents were big music fans. And luckily for me, they were fans of really good 1960s bands like the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks and the Who and all those bands that had such an influence, that just hit me hard at a really young age. All this really good music. You know, 26 years later, I'm still listening to it all and still liking it very much. Saturday night at my house, when I was a kid, would be record night. It would be my dad picking out all these records, and we would play them until... well, until bedtime. And that was, like, every Saturday night. So music was just such a big part of me growing up."

He started learning guitar at the age of four years and was involved in musical theatre at 10, then shortly afterwards joined a boy's choir for 3 years. By the age of 13 formed the

emo Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of and hardcore punk from the Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered b ...

indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...

band M.I.J.Artist's bio on Amazon.co.uk
Retrieved April 12, 2014. with bandmates Ryan Scheife (bass) and Mike Kennedy (drums). The band released a 7" on One Percent Records, an EP and a full album on Caulfield Records and remained active for seven years.

Career

He began a solo career in 2003 and was the first artist to be signed to

Kill Rock Stars Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally know ...

Records after sending in an unsolicited demo tape. He released three albums for the label, ''Son'' in 2003 and ''Jeff Hanson'' in 2005 recorded at

Presto! Recording Studios Presto! Recording Studios is located in Lincoln, Nebraska, and run by brothers Mike Mogis and A.J. Mogis. The studio began in the brothers' North Platte, Nebraska basement and around 1995 moved to the basement of a Lincoln home. First known as W ...

with AJ Mogis and Mike Mogis. His third album titled ''Madam Owl'' was released on August 19, 2008. The song "Hiding Behind the Moon" was used in the episode 6 of the first season of the TV series ''

Nip/Tuck ''Nip/Tuck'' is an American medical drama television series created by Ryan Murphy that aired on FX in the United States from July 22, 2003, to March 3, 2010. The series, which also incorporates elements of crime drama, black comedy, family dra ...

''. A previously unpublished song "Daylight" appeared on the compilation ''

The Sound the Hare Heard ''The Sound the Hare Heard'' is a 2006 compilation of mostly acoustic arrangements by a number of singer-songwriters, both well-known and relatively obscure. Kill Rock Stars founder Slim Moon was the driving force behind the album, but not all o ...

'' in 2006.

Personal life and death

In 2005 Hanson married Megan Anzelc, credited on his album ''Son'' with piano and electric piano, as well as on his album ''Jeff Hanson'' with accordion, keyboards and piano. They divorced in 2008.St. Paul singer-songwriter Jeff Hanson, 31, found dead
. . ''Minneapolis Star Tribune''. Retrieved April 20, 2013. Hanson was found dead by his parents on June 5, 2009, in his

St. Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

apartment, into which he had recently moved. The cause of death was mixed drug toxicity. The

medical examiner The medical examiner is an appointed official in some American jurisdictions who is trained in pathology that investigates deaths that occur under unusual or suspicious circumstances, to perform post-mortem examinations, and in some jurisdictio ...

's office was unable to determine whether the death was accidental or intentional. His brother Ryan explained in 2015 that “The medical examiner found nothing illegal in his system at all. All they found was his anti-depressants, his anti-anxiety medication, and he had been drinking . . . for whatever reason, the sun, the moon, and the stars all aligned in a particular way where it ended up becoming toxic. We went back and looked at the prescriptions that had been written, and you want to place some kind of blame—but you can’t.”�
Remembering Jeff Hanson
�� ''The Current''. Retrieved September 27, 2020.

Discography

*1995 ''Chewed Smooth Center'' (as part of the band M.I.J.) *1996 ''300 Miles (7")'' (as part of the band M.I.J.) *1999 ''M.I.J. (EP)'' (as part of the band M.I.J.) *2000 ''Radio Goodnight'' (as part of the band M.I.J.) *2003 ''Devil in the Woods'' (EP) (Limited edition of 777 copies. Exclusive to Devil in the Woods Magazine issue 5.3.) *2003 ''Son'' *2005 ''Jeff Hanson'' *2008 ''Madam Owl''

References

External links

Official websiteFactsheet for Hanson
from the Kill Rock Stars website, with

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

recordings and videos
Biography written by Kenyon Hopkin
of

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

Profile
on MySpace
February 2005 interview
with '' Pulse of the Twin Cities'' (also availabl
here

Jeff Hanson on NPR MusicApril 2009 interview with David Wolinsky
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanson, Jeff 1978 births 2009 deaths American male singer-songwriters American multi-instrumentalists Singer-songwriters from Minnesota Musicians from Milwaukee Kill Rock Stars 20th-century American singer-songwriters Drug-related deaths in Minnesota 20th-century American male singers Singer-songwriters from Wisconsin