Spotify Wrapped: My intriguing number one artist you've never heard of

The advent of Spotify Wrapped often serves as an anticipated end-of-year occurrence that can suffice in alleviating some of the dark days that crop up in late November to mid-December. Full of silly new features each time around, this year’s would include actual leaderboards for your top artists. I was shocked when Spotify told me, with its usual breezy confidence, that I was the number one listener in the world for an artist named Lorenz Graham. I was shocked, mainly, because I hadn’t the faintest idea who the guy was. I knew the music – there was one album I’d had on repeat – but hadn’t the foggiest about the artist.

I, somehow, was supposed to be this man’s champion, his devotee. The die-hard who won’t shut up about this unknown hero’s unrecognised and under-appreciated musical ability. But still, I had no clue who he was. A couple of vague Google flurries had drawn me to a Lorenz Bell Graham, children’s writer of the Harlem Renaissance, but his name seemed as far as I could get. No mention of a secret, one-off album produced, nothing. My interest was piqued.

This singular album, 900 Miles from Home, leapt out from my phone and laptop screens with its orange intensity each time I listened to its blues-folk beauties, every instance after Spotify Wrapped had exposed my fandom. With the cactus-adorned record appearing to be floating through the digital ether like a message in a bottle, I did a little further research.

The name leads at first to Lorenz Bell Graham (1902-1989), the writer mentioned earlier. Quite a prominent name actually, with his composer sister Shirley marrying pioneering black author and activist W.E.B. Du Bois. Yet, the name on the record belongs to his son, Lorenz Bell Graham Jr. (1930-2006), who I found to surface only in the brittle light of a Seattle Times obituary.

It mentions an accomplished folk singer, citing an album titled 500 Miles – slightly off – but having spotted Bob Dylan singing a similarly named track, I’d realised that the ‘500 Miles’ rendition was a widely sung record and the obituary had slipped up. Notwithstanding the fact that the album’s title was wrong, the obituary also mentioned a song that features on it, ‘Oh Hannah’, which turned out to be the clincher. That tune was on my record, and I’d found my man.

Graham seems to have made this album… and nothing else. Zilch in the surviving records (even having searched up the record label Counterpoint / Esoteric) suggests touring circuits (as the obituary implies), coffeehouse residences, or the usual paths of folk revival. It looks like he merely passed through the history of mid-century musical life.

The mysterious man seems to come from the edge of things, a black folk singer born into a literary family who made a single recorded gesture in 1958, right before the folk revival came into play. 900 Miles from Home almost survives by accident, with a handful of Discogs listings and a reference here and there. It seems that his name has faded into his father’s, meaning each time you try to locate a smidge more information on Lorenz Graham the singer, you instead get Lorenz Graham the author.

I can’t even remember how I first encountered Lorenz. I’m fairly certain the first track I heard was ‘Colorado Trail’, but even that I can’t be sure of. All I know now, is that I’m tied to the guy in some way. The main takeaway for anyone reading is to give the music a go. It ranges from the beautiful, touching, woodwind-backed and silky ‘Come O My Love’, to the punchy soul-folk-blues title track, ‘900 Miles from My Home’, to a cover of ‘Drunken Sailor’, and a Caribbean number, ‘Shame and Scandal’. It really has it all.

It is utterly perplexing as to why this angel-voiced man only appeared to make one, stunning, flawless record – and then stop. It surely can’t be the whole story – this man was born in the midst of the literary and political culture of mid-century black America, and there has to be more.

With a digitalised remaster of the album in 2014, I’ve sent some queries to the companies that now own the original label that’s long been a subsidiary of a bigger company. Hopefully they have more of a story to tell. If not, then this faint archival signature, the lonesome surviving document of Lorenz Bell Graham Jr., can show us how much of musical history survives in the margins – sometimes only a misremembered surname away from disappearing altogether, that is, until resurfacing in Spotify Wrapped.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0XZkj2dELixy6OpuPGxjL9?si=W8sogKpkSH-v3Pf1RsUSUA