Curtis Eller is an American musician. Eller and his band, The American Circus, perform and record in New York City. Eller is a noted banjo player. His music is diverse; he sings about pigeon racing, performing elephants and Jesus. He started his show-business career at the age of seven as a juggler and acrobat in the Hiller Olde Tyme Circus in Detroit, but has since turned to the banjo. According to the bio posted on his website, Eller's band has appeared at funerals, horse races, burlesque shows and vaudeville revues. It describes their act in a jocular vein: "Haunted by the ghosts of silent film and wearing a dead man's clothes, Mr. Eller and the band have staggered their way into the hearts of audiences from Amsterdam to Los Angeles." On the latest American Circus CD, Taking Up Serpents Again, Eller's songs about snake handling, Buster Keaton, Coney Island and Amelia Earhart are accompanied by tuba, upright bass, accordion, pedal steel and rattlesnakes. Eller wrote a song about Earhart's disappearance, "Amelia Earhart"; one of the lyrics poignantly states that she "disappeared in a cloudbank and the static never cleared." Eller's tune "Alaska" was voted "2003's most Popular" on NPR's All Songs Considered. Official site MySpace
