Bio
About
Jay Brown is a roots music one-man-band from Black Mountain, North Carolina, who has been playing guitar and piano since the age of 7. A prolific songwriter, Jay's performances draw from a couple hundred original songs, as well as countless covers from the roots of Americana and beyond. Jay has spent years traveling and playing around the U.S., absorbing our rich musical heritage and performing with artists such as Doc Watson, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Etta Baker. Jay has also taken multiple trips to Ghana, West Africa, where he studied and performed traditional African music with the Ghanaians.
His eclectic musical tastes found expression in 1996, when he became a founding member of Lazybirds, a band that blends a wide variety of musical styles, including jazz and blues, country and rock ‘n roll, to create a fresh and soul stirring sound. Lazybirds have been a mainstay of the North Carolina roots music scene for nearly 30.
Jay also formed the Indian folk fusion band Shantavaani with his wife Aditi, which put out 3 classic albums during its 2 year period. Jay continues to perform with Aditi, blending Aditi’s Indian folk and classical influences with his own folk and original music. Aditi and Jay perform as a duo, and also with Joel Karabo Elliot in Roots Grown Deep. Aditi and Jay also recorded 2 critically acclaimed records with their friends Angie and Cas in The Appalucians.
Jay is a music therapist, and he worked for Hospice in Asheville for 8 years. This enriching work, as well as the work he continues to do along with Aditi at the Center For Conscious Living and Dying, has been a deepening influence in Jay's music over the years.
Over the last several years Jay has been the host of the original music showcase Local Live! twice monthly at The White Horse Black Mountain, one of the premier music venues in the southeast, giving him the opportunity to share the stage with countless amazing and original musicians in and around Western NC. Jay also performs occasionally as a pianist for silent Chaplin films. Once in a while he even brings the herd of cats out to do a family band show with the wife and 3 kids, known as SB 5.
A versatile musician, Jay is as much at home swingin' the blues and boogie with his buddies in the Lazybirds as he is playing songwriter showcases and house concerts, but you can easily find him blending his styles in the pubs and listening rooms around the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina.
Quotes
“The secret is out , Jay Brown is the most authentic songster to come out of the Carolina High Country since a man named Doc Watson”
- Ketch Secor, Old Crow Medicine Show
“The timeless voice of the Poet”
- Performing Songwriter Magazine
There are few more talented or charming additions to the music scene here than Jay Brown. With the Lazybirds, he captures the spirit of old timey, early country, jazz and ragtime. Formed in 1996, the quartet developed a following in the Boone area, and their music and followers spread out. Asheville Citizen Times
With Beginner Mind, Jay Brown might just be bringing real Americana to the masses http://thecutpricejukebox.wordpress.com
Jay Brown has been at it for a while as a long time member of the Lazybirds. His world and music experience comes through all over this solo release, a warm and worthy effort that should continue establishing his brand as one to reckon with. http://www.beardedmagazine.com
Backed by his deft finger picking and lilting melodies, Brown needs little more than to romanticize a few of his past experiences under the moon with the wind at his back to make us feel like we’re there with him… and it feels pretty damn good. http://www.thevinyldistrict.com
What this forms when combined is a complete package of modernity and timelessness, and a lot of heart. http://popdose.com
Singer/songwriter Jay Brown may be one of the most eclectic artists ever to cross our pages, playing across a multitude of genres across a several types of stage acts. http://www.penseyeviewnew.com
For the better part of two decades, Jay Brown has been filling the air with music. As a member of the blues/swing combo Lazybirds, Brown mastered a distinctive rollicking bluesy jazz guitar style. http://www.wataugademocrat.com
And if there is a more inventive country blues harpist currently recording than Jay Brown, I need and Introduction.” (Rock n Reel Magazine, UK) http://lazybirds.net/media
Listening to Jay Brown's debut disc might possibly make you a believer in time travel. The first listen could have you thinking you're somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains right around the turn of the century. (Performing Songwriter, 1996) http://www.jaybrownmusic.com/jaybrownreview.html
The music is appropriately raw and rootsy but not unrefined. There is some striking musicianship here… Brown has a smooth, handsome voice that is equally at home dropping funny lines and poetic observations a la Paul Simon.”
http://whisperinandhollerin.com/reviews/review.asp?id=8771
The level of improvement that singer/songwriter Jay Brown reveals with each new release hints at a talent that just might bust the walls open of the mainstream soon. Soul to Soul is among the year’s best, easily. http://www.nodepression.com/profiles/blogs/album-review-jay-brown-soul-to-soul
On “Soul to Soul,” Brown proves why other musicians look to him for inspiration
http://mountaintimes.com/columns-album-reviews/articles/Soul-to-Soul-id-024157