The Jones Street Boys
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The Jones Street Boys

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Band Americana Bluegrass

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"Greil Marcus Quote"

Whatever you might have expected from Overcome, this isn't it.

Listening is like running down a mountain on a switchback trail, the sound of surprise generating its own momentum. There's a punk glee inside the bluegrass craft--and a punk vehemence inside the bluegrass smile.
- Greil Marcus


"Time Out New York"

For a band of Brooklynites, the Jones Street Boys kick up a pretty good hillbilly stomp

on Overcome (Smith Street). They play their catchy originals with virtuosic mandolin jams and honky-tonk piano fillers, and top them with off-kilter, good-time harmonies. - Time Out New York


"Deli Band of the Week"

http://www.thedelimagazine.com/FeatureView.php?artist=jonesstreetboys - The Deli NYC


"New York Press Review of JSB in 12 Ophelia's"

"A thrumming local band whose styles shift from rock to soul to rockabilly...full of genius dissonant harmonies." - New York Press


"FROM “12 OPHELIAS” REVIEW IN VARIETY (by Sam Thielman)"

If you pass up the chance to schlep out to Williamsburg [to see “12 Ophelias”]…, you'll miss one wonderful thing: a hooky five-piece bluegrass/roots band called the Jones Street Boys, which provides the play's most authentic Smoky Mountain grace notes, despite the fact that none of its members hail from south of the Mason-Dixon line.... The band's contagious harmonies and musical flourishes infuse… [the] production with a strangely happy jangle of well-crafted tunes…. [All other elements] of "12 Ophelias" eventually fade into the background behind the vigorous, rich swell of a finger-pickin' good band. - Variety Magazine


"New York Times Quote"

"The Jones Street Boys, a country and bluegrass quintet from New York, play charming, unusually graceful acoustic music."
--The New York Times - New York Times


"Onion AV Club Quote"

"The band's ingratiating 2007 release, Overcome, applies the warmth of traditional music to tales of young, urban life in the modern age, coming across like 1995 Wilco with the sensibility of 2007 Wilco."
--The Onion AV Club, Milwaukee - The Onion


Discography

Full-length debut album released by Smith Street Records on October 2, 2007. Features guest vocals by Jon Langford of the Mekons / Waco Bros.

Photos

Bio

The Jones Street Boys make American music that is both contemporary and classic in its character. Veterans of New York City's roots music community, they released their debut album Overcome in October 2007 and are currently recording a new album which will be released in early 2009.

Midwest transplants Danny Erker (St. Louis) and Jonathan Hull (Chicago) met in New York City in 2002. Shortly after, they helped form The Cobble Hillbillies, a Brooklyn bluegrass collective, with whom they played the 2006 Merlefest Midnight Jam alongside Nickel Creek, Peter Rowan, and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.

With the aim of writing songs that drew from the best of American roots music, Jon and Danny started working on new tunes. Together they wrote much of the material that would appear on Overcome. Though they had a range of instruments at their disposal (banjo, dobro, harmonica, mandolin, guitar and accordion), they knew their sound was incomplete. In the Fall of 2006, the missing elements came together when Jon and Danny asked three friends to write with them.

Princeton native Jonathan Benedict added keys, production skills, and a deft ear for melody and chorus hooks. Bassist and guitarist Walt Wells, who met Jon when they studied at Indiana University, brought the eclectic input and knowledge of his college studies in theory and Ethnomusicology. Walt (Springfield, OH) has played in a range of musical contexts and is comfortable performing in styles as diverse as Mariachi, Japanese Gagaku, Gospel, and R&B. With Walt, Sam Rockwell, a drummer from Minneapolis, gave the band a solid but nuanced rhythmic foundation. Sam, who studied music at New York University, is an extremely well-balanced drummer, commanding both powerful rock skills and the articulate brushwork of a jazz player.

These members have grown to share a focus on songwriting, storytelling, harmony-singing, and musicianship�and, increasingly, an exploration of combining genres to create a dynamic signature sound. Compositions are a collaborative effort. All five members write, and the finished products are a rare synthesis of styles, enriched and polished as the group works through the pieces together to find each song's final incarnation. These communal practices are the band's foundation�technically and philosophically; this collaboration is tangible in their live performances.

In the nine months since Overcome's release, momentum has built rapidly for The Jones Street Boys. After the success of a fall residency at New York's storied club, The Living Room, and a winter tour, the band was invited to play parties at the 2008 Sundance Festival: the Synchronized Green Initiative Concert Series and the New York Film Commission's private finale party.

Most recently, The Jones Street Boys were commissioned to score nine songs for The Woodshed Collective's production of Caridad Svitch's Twelve Ophelias, as well as perform them live during the twenty-two date run this summer in Brooklyn's historic McCarren Park Pool. And June 26th saw the launch of "Live from Down Home," a new Americana music series, which the band helped develop and now curate and host at the Housing Works Used Book Caf�, a Manhattan-based non-profit.