South Rail

Our name comes from the Southern Railway- a line that had stops in North Carolina, Maryland and New York. The three members of our band come from different styles and backgrounds, together creating a unique, unified sound that embraces various styles and genres stemming from roots music.

The Band:

Jay was raised in North Carolina, where he began his professional music career in his late teens. He co-founded a blues-rock trio The Groov, then joined a Grateful Dead cover band named Wavy Train. With Jay's influence, the band forged a new sound that combined original pop-oriented melodies with extended improvisation. After moving to the DC area in 2001, Jay began his journey into the Americana style. Since then, Jay has won multiple awards from NewSong, and also won the Gold BMI Songwriter Award in the Mid-Atlantic Songwriting Contest for his original works. He currently lives in the DC area with his wonderful wife and two children and continues to write amazing original tunes with a strong Americana feel.

Lara was born and raised in the DC area, then traveled to upstate New York to earn a Bachelor's of Music in Vocal Jazz from Ithaca College. It was there that she began her songwriting, and developed her jazz influences and song structure. She currently works as a private voice and piano teacher, as well as singing professionally at Saint Matthew's Cathedral in downtown DC. She finds that most of her music is autobiographical, but has started to venture into the art of storytelling after hearing how poignant the style can be from Jay's original lyrics.

Ben was also born and raised in the DC area. Influenced by his musical family, he began drumming at an early age. During his time studying music at UMBC in Baltimore, Ben played in various performing bands of different styles before finally settling into an acoustic rock group called Fiction 20 Down. With this group, he recorded two full length LP's and toured numerous venues in the Eastern US. Throughout his career, Ben has learned that being a successful drummer (especially in a roots genre) is about the subtleties of rhythm and feel which, although not always easily identified by a listener, can make or break a song.