Jason Wilber

“…a songwriter who sings of small discoveries and caustic contradictions with Midwestern understatement and blunt truth. The album title is a song, recorded live, that skewers Elvis Presley at his most debauched. Funny and obvious until its follow-up, a solitary and sad rendering of ‘Don't Be Cruel’. Wilber's downcast interpretation makes the song faintly familiar but entirely different. His later covers (including Prine's ‘Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone’ and the sublime Rowland Salley song ‘Killing the Blues’) are highlights and well positioned against his originals. Which include a wry, talking blues about a state government bureaucracy ("Talk about 69") and the magnetic field of romance (‘In Her Veins’). Here his true colors shine through: a folk craftsman who knows how to deliver the news.” - Chicago Daily Herald

“Jason Wilber has impressed blues curmudgeon Roy Book Binder and songwriting kingdaddy John Prine, musicians whose opinions rightly carry more weight than a few paragraphs from any music critic. Book Binder has been playing Wilber's The Ballad of Amazing Grace and Sideshow Dan for years, and Prine's road shows feature Wilber on stringed instruments and harmony vocals. Recorded in Bloomington, Ind., and released with little hubbub, Wilber's Behind the Midway meets the expectations brought about by such heavyweight associations. His voice is closer in timbre to Paul Simon than to Prine, and it works best on plaintive songs such as the opening track Lay Down When You're Done: "Crooked people, empty stairs/ The windows rattle and the daylight's scarce," begins that loping ballad, with lyrics evocative enough to bring Prine's Far From Me or Angel From Montgomery to mind.”
- The Tennessean

“…a songwriter who sings of small discoveries and caustic contradictions with Midwestern understatement and blunt truth. The album title is a song, recorded live, that skewers Elvis Presley at his most debauched. Funny and obvious until its follow-up, a solitary and sad rendering of ‘Don't Be Cruel’. Wilber's downcast interpretation makes the song faintly familiar but entirely different. His later covers (including Prine's ‘Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone’ and the sublime Rowland Salley song ‘Killing the Blues’) are highlights and well positioned against his originals. Which include a wry, talking blues about a state government bureaucracy ("Talk about 69") and the magnetic field of romance (‘In Her Veins’). Here his true colors shine through: a folk craftsman who knows how to deliver the news.” - Chicago Daily Herald

What a terrific record! Ordinarily, I wouldn't suggest starting a studio album with a live track, but it's perfect. And what a sneaky lead-in to "Don't Be Cruel," which you deliver in such a sly manner... slipping in all the emotion in your rather sleepy delivery. Speaking of covers, not just anybody would choose "Sabu" from the John Prine song book. Another nice surprise. I don't like to "play favorites," pardon the pun. I have one, nonetheless. "Satellite." What a grand flight of emotional imagination. Thanks for sending in the CD. It will be on the air starting Monday."

- WUMB Boston Radio

What a terrific record! Ordinarily, I wouldn't suggest starting a studio album with a live track, but it's perfect. And what a sneaky lead-in to "Don't Be Cruel," which you deliver in such a sly manner... slipping in all the emotion in your rather sleepy delivery. Speaking of covers, not just anybody would choose "Sabu" from the John Prine song book. Another nice surprise. I don't like to "play favorites," pardon the pun. I have one, nonetheless. "Satellite." What a grand flight of emotional imagination. Thanks for sending in the CD. It will be on the air starting Monday."

- WUMB Boston Radio