Singer-songwriter Greg Trooper dead at 61

Singer-songwriter Greg Trooper, whose songs have been recorded by Vince Gill, Robert Earl Keen, and Billy Bragg, died Sunday, two days after his 61st birthday and fewer than two years after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Trooper, born in Neptune, New Jersey on Jan. 13, 1956, began visiting folk clubs in Greenwich Village in his teens during the early 1970s. Those trips would have a significant impact on his own music, which incorporated country, folk, roots rock and soul.

After stints in Austin, Texas and Lawrence, Kansas, Trooper moved to New York City in the 1980s. There, the Greg Trooper Band released their debut record, “We Won’t Dance” in 1986. Three years later, Vince Gill recorded the title track for his album “When I Call Your Name.”

Trooper moved to Nashville in the mid-1990s. He spent more than a decade based Music City recording critically acclaimed albums—including 1998’s “Popular Demons,” which was produced by Buddy Miller—in between touring heavily. He relocated to Brooklyn in 2008.

He performed at the annual “Freedom Sings” concerts at the Bluebird Café to benefit the First Amendment Center and also participated in SongwritingWith: Soldiers, an organization that harnesses the therapeutic power of music by pairing songwriters with service members and veterans.

As a whip-smart songwriter with a knack for composing vivid and compelling lyrics, Trooper had a number of admirers among his fellow artists. Emmylou Harris and Rosanne Cash contributed harmony vocals to his albums, and Steve Earle recorded his song “Little Sister.”

In the liner notes of Trooper’s 2003 album, “Floating,” Earle wrote the following: “I met Troop at the Lone Star Café in New York in the summer of 1986.  I was hammered when I got there and in even worse shape when I left.  When I came to on an airplane halfway back to Nashville the next day, the only thing I could remember was one amazing song call ‘Little Sister.’  I never forgot it….(It) was ‘Little Sister’ that made me jealous.  I learned it and I sang it for audiences and sometimes while I was up there singin' it I would pretend, just for that three minutes, mind you, that I'd written it myself.”

Trooper’s thirteenth album, “Live at the Rock Room,” was recorded in Austin and released in 2015. That summer, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Though he had to cancel a several months' worth of shows to undergo treatment, he resumed songwriting and performing. Last January, he told HeraldScotland.com that working on his music "helped (him) to feel normal...there's an enormous amount of comfort in being able to play music."

Funeral arrangements are unknown at this time.