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Current mood:  artistic
Jon Napier is a singer/songwriter and musician who has forged his own personal style after being immersed in and surrounded by a myriad of stylistic influences on his journey. They range from the traditions of his youth in West Virginia to the country, roots rock, blues, and Americana of his current home in Austin, the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World.
Growing up in West Virginia, Jon was surrounded not only by the area's rich musical heritage of Gospel with an old Scotch/Irish twist and the very roots of Bluegrass, but his own musical extended family as well. Relatives on both sides of the family were players of gospel and mountain music. And it was his grandmother to give Jon his first guitar at age 8, preparing him to carry on the music by sitting him down to teach him the Carter family classic Wildwood Flower. Jon covers the song "What Kind of Game Are You Playin", written by his Grandmother on his latest release "Tin Can Poet".
In school while everyone else was listening to Nirvana a neighbor was teaching Jon how to play Bob Dylan and Lynyrd Skynyrd tunes. Amidst the limited West Virginia radio offerings Jon honed in on the classic rock station, absorbing the Southern Rock sound which then led him naturally to the blues. And that was a sound he all but chased down for the love and affinity he felt for it, absorbing every note he could from the likes of Clapton, Neil Young, Jimmy Page and Steve Marriott. Then a friend of his father's, got him playing some mountain hippy-type stuff as well as acoustic masters like John Prine, Neil Young and Arlo Guthrie.
At 15 Jon saw for the first time an artist perform solo, just a man and his guitar. It was this local, legendary singer/songwriter Mike Morningstar who fisrt put the idea of solo acoustic shows in Jon's head. Jon learned how to focus on what was actually being said in the words of the song and surround it with the wooden harmony of an acoustic guitar. Then once Jon got to Texas his creative mind was further expanded when he got turned on to local greats such as Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell and Willie Nelson's wider repertoire.
But with as much impact and inspiration these music greats provided Jon on his own musical journey, he found himself continually going back to his own sound, one that maintains its own purity without veering off or being too outwardly influenced by anybody. His style is not to be blown in every direction by the musical currents but to let them nudge, caress, nurture and uplift him. These influences are subliminal, subconscious, achingly subtle. So even as he devoted himself to his craft and proceeded to carve out his own guitar style over the years, everything from his boyhood West Virginia influences to that of Buffalo Springfield, The James Gang, Dan Fogelberg, Humble Pie, and Poco, still occasionally find their way out in Jon's playing – often times surprising no one more than Jon himself.
It was perhaps this genuine artistry Billy Joe and Eddie Shaver saw in Jon his very first week in Texas, "fresh off the hillside" as he puts it, when they met at an 'in store' signing at Hastings Records in Waco, that propelled Billy Joe to have Jon open for him on a string of gigs, eventually resulting in a spontaneous collaborative jam for a thrilled audience at the Black Gold in Mexia Texas. Since then Jon's been playing on stages all over Austin, with a recent regular Momo's run where he shared the stage with other local greats like Jeff Plankenhorn and Bukka Allen.
His most current endeavor is a full length CD expected to relesae in the next few months. The title "Tin Can Poet" came about in a conversation Jon had with his mentor who likened the wreckage of our mistakes in life to the crumbling of a tin can, leaving the soul a tiny hard piece of almost nothing. But, he said, redemption is always available to straighten us back out so we can hold water and become useful again.
The recordings on this CD not only hold water but are literally overflowing with local talent, including Jeff Plankenhorn on lap steel, dobro and weissenborn; Kyle Clayton on upright bass; Chuck Ditto on piano; Darcie DeVille on most fiddle as well as Mandy Rowden on "Driving Me Crazy"; Ian Varley on some organ; Rick Richards on drums. Playing horns on the song "Right or Wrong" is Kevin Gibbs and Paul Luedke from About Blank with Chris Rankin on lead guitar. And Colin "Utility" McDonald works his genius all over the CD on guitar, dobro, slide guitar, bass, drums, Hammond organ, percussion. Background vocals include Angie McClure, Chris Kano, and Jon himself as well as his ethereal songstress wife Jessy Napier.
The songs, written and fine-tuned over the last ten years, compile a strong body of work, each standing distinctly on their own yet complimenting each other within a smooth, richly-textured, cohesive unit, infused with Jon's familiar signature, yet delightfully unpredictable in their originality. Played together they become a heady force that washes over you like ocean waves, with a ageless rhythm that's both powerful and relaxing at the same time.
From the many lush three part harmonies, to the infectious melody of "What Kind of Game", the compressed Martin guitar sound of "Over and Over" and the keyboard trickling like a meandering creek on "Feels Good to Know" the CD curves and turns and rushes over rocky rapids yet still flows clear and purposeful, like the musical journey of the man that created it. There's even a hint of jam band flare in "Over and Over", one that almost makes you wish it were, so to give you an excuse to dance around the yard half naked all day long while listening to it.
In his own words Jon's style is not to be "one of those lead guitar dudes," though his talents by now encompass solid lead and rhythm guitar, dobro, and even the harp on which he's recently been playing with a couple blues bands around Austin. His vocals range from soulful and haunting to achingly, sweetly strained, his occasional slight rasp lending a seasoned edge to his otherwise youthful resonance, reminiscent of the late great Rick Danko.
If his playing uplifts and soothes at the same time, it is in Jon's lyrics that the depth of his experience and eloquence truly shines. With nary a clichéd nor forced line or rhyme, his every word and verse seem to flow with effortless inspiration. From poignant and poetic, to universal and timeless, they're concepts laid out in both stirring complexity and gripping simplicity.
From "Light That Shines" a tender heartfelt plea by which he rescues a new relationship in the earliest tenuous days of falling in love with his wife, to "Good Things On The Way" where the play of their entwined vocals is certain to give repeated chills to even the most jaded of listeners, Jon's are the insights of an engaged and evolved spirit. From the tortured "Driving Me Crazy" and "What We Have" to the dreamy hopefulness of "Different Now" he writes with a wisdom born of hardship and real life experience, and the self-awareness of a man who has become wiser, stronger, and more at peace, for it.
His stories and situations are familiar and identifiable, yet told with freshness and depth, even devilish cockiness at times yet always substantive and emotionally expansive. He has that innate songwriter's gift for telling stories with emotional weight in such a way as to lift the listeners' own heavy burdens. If Jon Napier has one foot planted in four decades past and one firmly in the here and now, it is our good fortune to experience his musical gifts live and first hand.
Being recently married with two young children has expanded Jon's horizons even further, propelling him to move the entire brood to Spicewood Texas, southwest of Austin, a more countrified area in which to indulge his love of nature, camping, fishing and raising a family – just some of the many blessings that help keep him grounded in the present moment along with writing and performing. Perhaps said best with his own lyrics on "Slow Burning Sun" Jon states, God I've tried, but I had to do the only thing I ever knew … And you can laugh and say I'm young, but it's been real far from where I've come."
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