Joe Nelson - guitars, bass, keyboards and anything else I can get my hands on!
Influences
What to say? Grew up in the mid-Hudson valley region of New York in the 70's, living on a steady diet of what was then Musicradio WABC augmented by mom leaving a (battery operated) radio in the kitchen tuned to country WHN in New York City literally 24 hours a day. Played the obligitory stint on regional rock and roll bands, went solo first as a contemporary Christian artist, followd by a more secular rock sound and still later a more country approach.
Names? Never anything simple with me... safe to say country was my first love, and Webb Pierce was my favorite singer long before I knew who Elvis or the Beatles even were. Spent early teen years enthralled by the likes of Deep Purple, ELO and the Moody Blues. Started playing guitar and writing songs seriously when I was 15, lotta early country stuff being played here while I was picking up a lot of ideas about songwriting from old Who records (pre-Tommy). Born-again in college, played pretty much Christian music exclusively: solo coffehouse gigs and church musician (bass, honed style here as something of a Christian version of John Entwistle among as group of musicians that comprised several folk/country players, a handful of classically trained people and me - had to learn to plug holes in the sound with the bass while holding down the bottom at the same time.) Somewhere in 1987 during a depressive bout turned on a local Christian station and heard a song by the Rap-Shures that suggested (to me at least) that we should give thanks and rejoice in everything no matter how down we get: swore never to play Christian music again and refocused energies into something more secular in scope. Decided about four years later that marriage and fatherhood were causing me to write about things that didn't translate to credible rock songs and countrified the sound.
Guitar: Struggled to emulate flashy lead styles to various levels of incompetence for most of early life. Heard "What You Need" by Inxs in early 1986 and realized that was the sound I was looking for. Gravitated toward people whose focus was on their support playing (the best soloist is in the limelight at best 20% of the time, and I decided that what you do the remaining 80+% decides how good you really are): James Honeyman-Scott (Pretenders), Jerry Chamberlain (Daniel Amos, also was involved with the Rap-Shures - sorry, Jerry) and Kevin Scott MacMichael (Cutting Crew, Robert Plant) made particular impressions. Solo acoustic work and small group worship (where I was frequently the sole acompanist) kept the likes of John Michael Talbot in mind for complexity.
Joe Nelson - the best kept secret on the East Coast or the most securely burried corpse? You be the judge....
What's to say? I got bitten by the music bug early. My mother used to say I was vaccinated with a phonograph needle (it was infected - wanna see the scar? :-? ). I started making up songs when I was five, writing them down at eight and finally clicked on guitar at fifteen. I devoured the instrument (resulting in many internal splinters, don't try this yourself, folks) and taught myself to play piano to a degree a year later and found my niche as a bassist six months after that when I was drafted onto the instrument as part of a high schol garage band called New York (see my "Rockward" blog for more info. That didn't last, and for me songwriting was always the thing. I bought a four track reel to reel in college and started recording everything I could fit in. A few of those tapes found their admirers, along with some other things recorded under better conditions. I was able to upgrade to eight track for much of the Nineties, and today I make my demos using Adobe Audition - great program.
Unfortunately, I was well into my thirties before I realized that home tapes in which I was overdubbing all of the parts might impress ordinary people but weren't going to get the kind of exposure I'd dreamed of. Today marriage and fatherhood (five kids!) are a bigger priority, and the music business doesn't have the allure it once did any more. I'm here because I will always enjoy doing this and it's a chance to expose what I did when I was younger along with anything else that might come around today. The blog entries for the most part are my reflections on the songs you hear along with thoughts on industry concerns in general, so take a good look around. (I blog on Yahoo {http://360.yahoo.com/joenelson1} on more personal matters, as well as my thoughts on social and political matters, and that site seems to see more traffic than this one.) Have fun, and enjoy your visit! - JRN
Yes, they can eat rabbits and stuff like that. But if they are raised to eat dry food and other stuff they won't even think about eating rabbits and other animals. I am raising him to eat dry food and cooked/raw meat.
The Godfathers first US concert in nearly 20 years...The Godfathers first ever American Saint Valentines Day Massacre concert...See The Godfathers LIVE at The Metro, Chicago on Saturday February 14th 2009...Tell all your friends - The Godfathers are coming!!!
I remember Poughkeepsie from Gene Hackman's interrogations in 'The French Connection'!!
Hey Joe thanks for the help the other night..., Another week has gone by. Hopefully we did our part to make the world a little brighter...I know you have!!!...Wishing you and all you love a Blessed weekend:-) Dianna,
I read your comment on Tiarra's picture. Don't worry Mr.Nelson. She has my support. I will be here for her when she needs me. I know Evelyn and Sydni will be there for her too. They are great friends.
