BIO
Jamie Block
New York-based singer-songwriter Jamie Block
helped create New York's anti-folk movement in the late 1980s and early 90s, drawing from musical elements of punk rock, electronica, jazz and hip hop.
His first studio album, Lead Me Not Into Penn Station in 1996, caught attention quickly, leading to Block opening shows for The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Bob Mould and They Might Be Giants.
In 1998, Glen Ballard (who had just produced Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill) signed Block as the first artist to his Capitol Records imprint, Java Records. Block released Timing is Everything that year, which the Boston Globe described as “tight, important and indeed well-timed.”
Several of Jamie's songs then appeared on movie soundtracks for Blast from the Past, Clubland and Never Been Kissed.
His return to recording came a few years later, with The Last Single Guy, released in 2006.
Then, in 2013, Block teamed up producer/engineer Dean Sharenow for Whitecaps On The Hudson, considered his most personal album to date.
The album featured a world-class band, including Erik Della Penna (Natalie Merchant, Joan Baez) on guitars, Mick Rossi (Paul Simon, Phillip Glass) on keyboards, and Byron Isaacs (Olabelle) and Jeff Hill (Rufus Wainwright) sharing the bass duties. It was recorded in two live Brooklyn sessions to maintain the spontaneity and flow of Block’s homespun demos.
Block's latest release, The Greene Street Sessions (2018), is a masterful reinvention of some of the original tracks recorded for his major-label debut, Timing is Everything in 1998. The tracks were recorded in the legendary Greene Street recording studio in Soho. Lou Reed’s producer and guitarist, Mike Rathke, and the rest of Reed’s band — bassist Fernando Saunders and drummer Tony Smith — as well as frequent Block collaborator, bassist Mozart Mark Dedeaux, provided the able back-up band for Jamie's guitar and vocals.
Critic Steven Marsh said upon the album's release, "The performances and production values captured are revelatory, letting us hear these songs in entirely new ways."
- Virginia Heffernan
Jamie Block is a New York-based singer-songwriter known for ramshackle, critical-darling, genre-bending antifolk music. In the 90s Block busked, skylarked and chainsmoked his way to indie stardom and then—rather than turn to a life of tears when Capitol Records dropped him—traitorously joined the one percent with a Wall Street career.
Only when, years later, he heard a sultry New York deejay named Claudia Marshall call him back to music did he pick up his guitar again. Also, because nothing's ever simple: His life fell apart. Midlife, divorce, spiritual spiral, recovery.
The longer version is this. In 1996, Block self-released
Lead Me Not Into Penn Station which, according to the Alternative Press, “practices the alchemy of melodious discord: pretty enough to draw you in, rough enough to keep you listening.” Block then opened for The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Bob Mould, and They Might Be Giants.
In 1998, Glen Ballard (who’d just produced Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill) signed Block as the first artist to his Capitol imprint Java Records, and released Block’s next album,
Timing is Everything, that year. Time Out said, “stellar,” and the Boston Globe said, “tight, important and indeed well-timed.” Several of his songs appeared on movie soundtracks, including “Rhinoceros” (Blast from the Past), “I Used to Manage PM Dawn” (Clubland), and “Catch a Falling Star” (Never Been Kissed).
His return to recording came a few years later, when WFUV deejay Claudia Marshall began regularly spinning his music and demanding on-air that the folksinger-in-pinstripes phone home. This plea led toThe Last Single Guy, released in 2006. Allmusic.com described it this way: “like a bedside book, this album can be played in one sitting, but so much better to dip in and out of it over time, letting one’s mood determine one’s favorites for the day.” It also appeared on Ms. Marshall’s “Best of the Year” list.
Block’s 2013 release,Whitecaps On The Hudson, presents deranged Byronic songs in loose, even organic attire. Call it antifolk or steamfolk or folkcore: pure-of-heart love songs run into unabashed pop melodies and collide with haunting spoken-word invocations. It is Block’s most personal record to date.
Producer/engineer Dean Sharenow brought in a world-class band to help realize the songs, including Erik Della Penna (Natalie Merchant, Joan Baez) on guitars, Mick Rossi (Paul Simon, Phillip Glass) on keyboards, and Byron Isaacs (Olabelle) and Jeff Hill (Rufus Wainwright) sharing the bass duties. The album was recorded in two live Brooklyn sessions to maintain the spontaneity and flow of Block’s homespun demos.
Block's latest release,
The Greene Street Sessions
(2018), is a masterful reinvention of some of the original tracks recorded for his major-label debut, Timing is Everything in 1998. The tracks were recorded in the legendary Greene Street recording studio in Soho. Lou Reed’s producer and guitarist, Mike Rathke, and the rest of Reed’s band — bassist Fernando Saunders and drummer Tony Smith — as well as frequent Block collaborator, bassist Mozart Mark Dedeaux, provided the able back-up band for Jamie's guitar and vocals.
Critic Steven Marsh said upon the album's release, "The performances and production values captured are revelatory, letting us hear these songs in entirely new ways."