“I love Chicago Farmer’s singing and playing and songs, but it’s the intention behind the whole of his work that moves me to consider him the genuine heir to Arlo Guthrie or Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. He knows the shell game that goes on under folk music… which is sacred to me. Chicago Farmer is my brother; if you like me, you’ll love him.”
- Todd Snider
“After a few listens to the record it becomes apparent that Chicago Farmer has a refreshingly firm grip on where he comes from. The songs are covered to the elbows in dirt from the fields and smell of the sweaty factory floors. If the Midwest is looking for a voice, the search is over.”
- No Depression
“This is not your average ‘man with guitar.’ Chicago Farmer’s approach to solo folk music is traditional, but his soul & energy are uncommonly powerful. Arriving with his classic acoustic guitar style is a voice smooth but broken-in that sounds wise beyond its years. He will stomp out a beat in leather boots to drive home a point and throw down a handsome harmonica solo to put a song over the top. The songs are about the places he’s been and the people he’s met, so local ideas are abound in this music from the heart.”
- CBS Chicago
“Previously, frequent comparisons to the works of famed folk troubadour Arlo Guthrie have been spot on. With this impressive step forward in song craft and dimension, Chicago Farmer has moved beyond any previous limitations and associations. Storyteller, humorist and heartfelt proponent of the core values of humanity itself, Chicago Farmer has always had a message of compassion that the world truly needs to hear. Thanks to the added power backing his insight and infectious spirit he is ready to take his message farther than ever before, as he does to wonderful effect on Midwest Side Stories.”
- Live For Live Music
“Chicago Farmer has one of the most haunting voices of our generation. And with that indelible voice he paints musical still-life’s of modern America that alternately frighten and inspire.”
- Joe Pug
“Chicago Farmer represents the best qualities of Midwestern U.S.A. His lyrics, his stories and his heart are true. He’ll give you that feeling of ‘going home’. He’ll make you want to say all those things you’ve been meaning to say but were too afraid. At the same time his songs can make you ask yourself some deep questions. His songs give you hope. If you didn’t know him I believe just his voice would make you believe every word he says. Definitely one of my favorite singers out there today.”
- Pokey LaFarge
“To call him a folk singer or categorize Chicago Farmer as a singer/songwriter wouldn’t be wrong. It might, however, not accentuate his commanding poetic voice and passion behind his storytelling.”
- Chicago Innerview Magazine
“You can smell the dirt in the fields, hear the wind as it blows across the plains, and see the people that Chicago Farmer sings about. Each track captures a moment in time, whether for a person or a particular place. Imagine if a John Steinbeck short story had been written as a song, and this will give you a fairly good idea as to what the Chicago Farmer accomplishes on his albums.”
- Honest Tune
“This is a working man’s singer/songwriter. The strident tones of his voice will make you sit up and listen.”
- Chicago Acoustic Underground
“A Chicago source of great folk music. The music was entrancing with great lyrics and songwriting. He creates the sound of love, confusion and great mystery of what is the world. One man, his guitar and harmonica making lyrically moving music which is extracted from the stage!”
“He combines the grassroots of folk, the swooning of blues and seals the deal with honesty + harmony. From the instant he took the stage he made a connection with the audience and by the end many fans felt more like friends.”
“Chicago Farmer ripped through one wailing, emotive Dylanesque tune after another, rousing his audience with his country-boy aesthetic mixed with city-streets mentality. This man-of-pain, salt-of-the-earth, shut-up-and-listen-to-beauty artistic theme was painted all over him, with a glaze of comic wit that rose his lyrics and passionate playing that much higher.”
- Homegrown Music Network
“Chicago Farmer has his finger on the modern Roots pulse with a display of gritty Country Rock and Folk from the gut amid a Folksingers mesh of lyrical humor and problems with a groove.”
- The Alternate Root
Chicago Farmer was typically potent, showing off with his band some of the better roots songwriting in Chicago today.
- Chicago Tribune
“Probably most known as a folk singer, there’s plenty of country, roots and Americana to be found here, too. Chicago Farmer is a hell of a storyteller and an equally skilled musician, and his Midwestern blue collar anthems sound better than ever, as he again proves why he’s one of the best of the genre today.”
- Take Effect Reviews
"Flyover Country" shows both Chicago Farmer's ability to spin a tale and to write songs that get people to sing along. It also shows how well he is able to evoke emotions – whether it’s a song that makes you laugh or a song that hits you right in the heart. Beyond all that, you realize that his is a style that will endure in a world where music has seemingly become disposable."
- Americana Highways
"Stark and joyous at the same time, the songs grab you by the throat and refuse to let go until they've penetrated your heart and soul, which, after all, is what great folk music has always done; Chicago Farmer's new album stands well in that tradition."
- Country Standard Time
"He's funny, he's kind, and he's preparing an instructional video about "how do you get that drawl that you do--it's kind of a mix between a small-town big-city kind of a northernly southernly easterly westerly stuck-in-the-middle type of a drawl." And if you grant that his DIY life touring the Midwest in his heroically supportive van is very nearly as hard as the lives of the fans he says put in 40 or 50 less colorful hours every week, he never stops thinking about class, which is why he brushes off an admirer who tells him that if he'd "leave out the politics" he'd move twice as many records (raising his nightly sales to 12, the merch guy in him calculates). Farmer assumes most of his fans are Democrats but welcomes Republicans, and why shouldn't he--not even a Republican could leave a Chicago Farmer show meaner than when he or she walked in. And ask yourself this: how many musicians have the consciousness to employ the square, tired-ass, polarizing terms "Democrat" and "Republican" at all? Only some kind of northernly southernly easterly westerly stuck-in-the-middle visionary.
- Robert Christgau