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Chris Jones is a San Francisco-based retro-revival songwriter who grew up in the South. The influences of both coasts colliding in his brain have led him on a journey to find the bridge between tradition and innovation. Chris has a deep love and respect for the classic songwriting styles of Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and Townes Van Zandt, and doesn't ignore the modern artists like Ryan Adams, Jeff Tweedy and Elliot Smith. He effortlessly writes in the styles of classic Country, insatiable Pop, bloody Rock n'Roll and progressive Experimentalism without boundaries. It's all just music to him.
For his first commercial release with a label Chris had definite ideas about how he wanted "Underneath the Sun" to sound.
“I reached back into the rhythms and lyrics of my Southern beginnings and mixed them with the experiences I’ve had being a performer in the San Francisco music scene,” says Chris. “I wanted to write songs with classic honky-tonk themes and bring the energy of Southern Rock to innovate on the sound and make it my own.”
For the full-on rock songs, he chose to lay down live performances with a minimal amount of dubbing and mixing. These sessions were performed at San Francisco’s Different Fur studios along with seasoned bandmates Bill Cramer and Chris Guthridge from Ride the Blinds. The more country rock sounding songs on Underneath the Sun were done in the remote, wind-and-fog-swept seaside town of Caspar, Calif., just north of Mendocino. Here, at Old School Studios, he collaborated with Calvin Turnbull -- who has worked with Sheryl Crowe, Leon Russell and Eric McFadden among others -- to create a tavern-like intimacy and give each tune a striking personality. By overdubbing tracks with his own guitar, organ, steel guitar and harmonica playing, Chris uniquely delivers personal songs that will strike a chord with just about any listener.
“My hope is that people will hear and feel something familiar about the songs on Underneath the Sun but they will experience something fresh and moving,” says Chris.
Chris's previous album, "Typewriter", was self-written, performed and mixed with a simple 4-track setup (Boss BR-532 recorder with an SM57 mic) in his dilapidated Victorian apartment on 24th St. and Mission, SF. You can purchase it on iTunes, or check his website. It's a tip of the hat to artists like Kelley Stoltz, Beck, Stevie Wonder, and Elliot Smith, who have created self-recorded albums in the past with great success.
Chris performs solo and as a member of SF rock outfit Strangefeather (guitar and vocals). In the past he has played with Ride the Blinds (2nd guitar), Jenni Alpert (guitar), TV Mike & the Scarecrowes (pedal steel), Charles Gonzalez and the Stereo Glitter (bass), Dawn Thomas (guitar), and Stonar (guitar).
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