Second album "Piece of Me" available - see Jay's myspace site for details
You may be mistaken for thinking his bluesy slide guitar sound & raspy to falsetto voice hails from the deep south. Well you'd be right, sort of!
South London, Croydon to be exact. Though you do feel like you've been transported to the home of the Delta blues from time to time, Jay's music encompasses a wide range of other musical influences. "I think maybe years ago, it did make a difference where you came from, as to what kind of musician you were. But today with TV, DVDs, CDs, film and the internet, the boundaries as to what you can get access to and listen to means it's no longer relevant."
But what is it about old blues music, some of it dating back to the 1920s, that inspires him so much? "I couldn't say exactly what it is about it that I love so much other than when I first heard a recording of Elmore James it blew my mind. This may sound cheesy, but it just buzzed something inside me. Since then I've got more and more into blues music delving further back to the roots and then forward again right through to the artists of today. Although I listen to so many different styles of music now, I guess 'old country blues' is the one genre of music that I always instantly feel connected to. I just can't explain rationally why that is other than I like the feeling I get."
Jay began learning to play the guitar at the age of 14. After a few lessons with teachers, he then began to teach himself to play. "Well my first teacher was boring and my second one, who was cool and would try to teach me Hendrix and Stevie Wonder songs left to find success in the States. So after them I thought 'it may take longer but I'll just keep learning by myself and try to make some sense of it by ear.' "
Along his journey of guitar discovery he became fascinated by the technique of slide guitar; a style of guitar playing where a steel or glass pipe/bar is used in place of the fingers on the fret board. It has a very distinctive sound and was used by old blues players such as Robert Johnson, Fred McDowell, Son House and Elmore James. "At first I didn't know how they got the guitar to sound like that. Until I got an instructional book and tape by Stefan Grossman which totally opened my eyes to the technique and to open tunings. From then on I was off. I learned everything I could about slide guitar and I'm still learning now."
Almost twenty years later, slide guitar is Jay's main instrument of choice, both bottleneck style and lap style. He is influenced now by players of today like Ben Harper, Chris Whitley and Kelly Joe Phelps as much as the players from the Delta blues era. He's played in several bands in a variety of styles and in 2002 went solo. "The last band I was in had run its course, and I thought 'do I really want to find another band to play in?' It was then that I decided to try and write my own songs, concentrating on a solo acoustic style. Which was a little scary at first, but then everything just fell into place and songs began to come to me. I recorded my debut album "No Big Deal" with musical and production contributions from some of my friends - Paul Goodridge, Dan Buskell, Tom Janssen, Dirk Bubeck and my brother Stu. Who are all musicians themselves and some of them were also in bands I'd been in."
Jay has been playing the acoustic scene now for the past two years and continues to mesmerise audiences with his live performances. "I love the intimacy you get from just a lone guitar and a voice in an acoustic venue and although some of my tracks on the CD have a full band sound, which I also plan to expand to a live setup, I will always play solo acoustic gigs as well. It's what feels most natural to me."
