 |
The obligatory
third-person blurb:
Jeff has lived in Florida since 1971 and
in St. Petersburg for the last 5 years. He classifies
his style of music as “Lyricoustic”
(lyrically driven, acoustic guitar based songs).
This style is evidenced on his latest CD, “Appearing
Slightly,“ a collection that balances humor
and insight with a strongly crafted melodic sensibility.
It is currently available online through CDBaby.com,
TowerRecords.com. and Hypnopotamus.com and locally
at Mickler-Smith Books in Old Northeast St. Petersburg.
Quotes from the interview (in the absence
of press clippings) that I agreed to give to myself:
“My main driving force is songwriting. I
love playing guitar and truly enjoy performing,
but the reason for all of it comes back to the
pure enjoyment of being inside of the experience
of a song being created. Once it has taken its
initial form, performing it live shapes it in
other ways and it often becomes quite different
than what I originally felt that it was going
to be.”
“My list of influences includes the usual
suspects of late 20th century singer/songwriters
(Dylan, James & Liv Taylor, Paul Simon, CSNY,
Randy Newman), British invaders (Beatles, Pete
Townshend, Ray Davies), those who answered the
invasion (John Sebastian, Richie Furay, Michael
Nesmith), those who answered to no one (Chet Atkins,
John Hartford, Michael Hedges), those who preserve
western swing (Ray Benson, Dan Hicks), and some
relative newcomers (Ben Folds, Amy Rigby). That
being said I'm not sure how much I actually reflect
these influences. I started out wanting to be
both Gilbert and Sullivan, but somewhere along
the line I wound up being me."
Buy Jeff Black CDs:
www.cdbaby.com
www.TowerRecords.com
www.Hypnopotamus.com |
|
|
 |
|
"Overcoming
our own inertia is usually the most difficult
step of any journey. I hadn’t made much of
an effort to get out into the local music scene
since moving up here from South Florida and I
had uncomfortably settled into the “there
is no place to play original music” malaise.
Somehow I was drawn to an open mic at the Music
Spot last December. Not only were my songs well
received but the pilot light of my inspiration
was re-ignited while watching the diverse collection
of creative souls sharing their craft in a spirit
of true community.
That night Kathryn Stafford told me about Just
Plain Folks and later called me with information
about where and when the next meeting would be.
A half a year later I’m starting to feel
like a part of this musical community. I know
that there are places to play original music (when
I get myself off of my couch) and, with sites
such as nubzilla.com, there are ways of getting
that music out into the world. It feels good to
be proved wrong about there being no place to
play original music and it is an honor to have
my music featured by Nubzilla. "
-Jeff |
|
|
