Jerry

Jerry Cherry is a product of many factors. Take a New York via Florida via Brooklyn artist and add a generous dose of only the finest influences: Bowie. The Verve. Elvis (both The King and Costello). The White Stripes. AC/DC. Add plenty of heartfelt emotion—the sort of heartfelt emotion that only comes from living life. Take songs rooted in the blues, in folk, rockabilly, and old country but filter them through a cello and violin, a trumpet and trombone. Add other influences such as the immeasurable draw of New York City and the trials and wantings of love. Take an appeal broad enough to burn up both Top 40 charts and indie Internet radio stations. This is Jerry Cherry.

That Jerry Cherry is a quintessentially New York artist is not surprising, but the route he took was not a traditional one. Born in Brooklyn, he moved with his family to Fort Lauderdale at the age of six. He picked up the guitar before he was a teenager and started to gig in high school. After honing his talents as both a guitar player and as a songwriter for several years, Jerry moved back to New York in 2004.

Jerry’s experiences in New York City are the basis of his debut album, Life Is Sweeter..., a song-cycle that condenses a year's worth of love and living in the city into a catchy and powerful 11 song album. "I lived it" Jerry says about his album and time in New York, which even included an appearance on the reality TV Show, Matched In Manhattan. Life Is Sweeter... was produced by Jerry himself and was mixed by multi-platinum engineer Mike Rogers (Dee-Lite, John Lennon, Sinead O'Connor, They Might Be Giants, Chubby Checker). Speaking of Chubby Checker, Jerry Cherry has spent much of the last year criss-crossing the country as Chubby Checker’s lead guitarist, including live performances on NBC’s Today Show and CBS’s Early Show. Jerry was also the temporary Musical Director for Chubby Checker for three months.

Songwriting is an intensely personal form of expression for Jerry Cherry. "For the most part I have to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown in order to write," says Jerry. "Creativity for me is almost like therapy." Since forming his band in 2003, Jerry Cherry has been letting New Yorkers share in his own form of therapy all over his city, performing at well-known venues such as Arlene's Grocery, The Knitting Factory, The Bitter End, Rockwood Music Hall, The Annex, and Piano's. He has also opened for artists such as Buckcherry, The Fixx, Chubby Checker, and Better Than Ezra. The past year has seen Jerry Cherry perform at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas and make appearances on nationally televised music programs such as The Daily Buzz and Fearless Music TV. His music video for his single “Freakshow” off Life Is Sweeter… was featured on Fuse TV and placed 8th out of over 1,100 entries on the OurStage.com Rock charts. The future is exciting for Jerry Cherry as he sees just how far the swell of grassroots support for Life Is Sweeter... will take him..