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 Jay spent his
college summers working as a solo folksinger on Virginia’s Skyline Drive.
He relocated to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the 1980s through the ’90s,
where he took up mandolin and was a founding member of the bluegrass band
Hit ’n Miss. Jay wrote a third of the songs and co-produced the group’s
1998 debut CD, Ice on the River, and performed with the band in
Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia for more than five years
before returning to his Virginia roots in 2000, settling in Sterling
Park. He is active in the World Folk Music Association in Washington.
In his own words - Jay's Musical Background:
In their spiels to audiences, I hear many musicians say
they grew up in a musical family. My mother played piano in church in
North Carolina as a girl and played at
home when I was growing up, and also suffered through two years of lessons
with me in elementary school. (“He can’t even find Middle C!” I can hear
those words just as plainly now as when I did when she withdrew me from
lessons. I had managed by memorizing my pieces week by week, but when it
came to reading music on the staff, I’m afraid it still is like
deciphering Spanish. I can get the gist of it – oh, yeah, Cuidado means
caution, or city, or wet floor. That’s an E-flat, I think.)
My
dad taught me how to sing in the car on trips. We sang “I’ve Been
Working on the Railroad” all the live-long day, just to pass the time
away. I remember in first grade we sang on the school bus coming home.
Those were the days.
But suddenly, music was not something we did – it was
something we watched and listened as other people did it on the Ed
Sullivan Show. I remember watching Porter Waggoner in black-and-white on
TV, sequins burning so brightly in the studio lights that they made black
trails across the screen. My parents hated country music, but growing up
in the
Shenandoah Valley you couldn’t escape it. All the
local bands played Buck Owens’ “Buckeroo” as a warm-up, especially if they
had a pedal steel.
I also remember watching Hootenanny, American Bandstand,
Soul Train, the Smothers Brothers, Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas, Johnny
Cash and Sonny and
Cher, and even John Denver on TV. Every time
the Beatles played it was an event. I sat, awestruck, as they played “All
You Need is Love” on the first global telecast. This was my
childhood.
Ask me and I will tell you
how I started playing guitar and mandolin.
I learned to sing at scout camp.
From age 14 to 17, I spent summers as a counselor at Camp
Rock Enon. I was an outpost assistant my first summer, which meant that I
led groups of kids with backpacks to a campsite a couple of miles from
base camp. I helped them get their gear checked out, and give them basic
instruction in what was going to happen, then lead them up the trail. We’d
set up, cook dinner and mess around, then sleep out, cook breakfast and
head back to camp. The kids would get an embroidered patch and fulfill
requirements for their advancement up the ranks.
I also taught cooking merit badge, knots and other basic
skills to the scouts.
But at every meal in the dining hall, the troops would line
up and we’d sing before we’d go in to eat. I led songs and participated in
songs. Staff members were expected to set an example, and we all sang –
even the coolest staffers, the older guys I admired. I also got to play
guitar, performing at campfires and leading singing at Chapel. We sang
seven days a week, three or more times a day.
So, by the time I was in college and Don DePuy told me
about this great folk singing opportunity on
Skyline Drive, my voice was ready.
It seemed as if I had been preparing for that job for years.
And, after my position ended there and I moved on to play
solo and in bands elsewhere, singing was always important to me. I sang in
church when I went to church and I sang in bars when I went to perform in
them. It’s probably the best skill a musician can pick up. If you’re going
to be a sideman, the opportunity to sing harmony is going to arise.
And yet, singing is perhaps the most personal of all
performances. I don’t know why that is, but it’s true. I’ve sung without
my guitar or mandolin – now that’s scary for some reason – in musical
plays in community theater. It’s easy to play a piece on guitar or
memorize a recital piece on piano, but to lead a group singing a song, now
that’s risk-taking at its best. Why is that?
When Allegheny Uprising played at Beans in the Belfry in
the summer of 2006, one of the patrons there – Gary Free is his name –
paid me the highest compliment. He said that when I played and sang, it
seemed like the most natural thing in the world for me. After I heard
Gary play guitar, that comment took on
additional meaning.
Gary is a bit older than I am and he has
been performing his entire life. What talent. You know, the best players
out there are usually not the ones getting all the attention on MTV. They
are these folks who have been picking their entire lives in small clubs,
at VFWs and AMVETS halls, working a day job and playing, not so much for
the money, but because they HAVE TO, their lives would feel incomplete if
they didn’t play the music they loved.
Please also visit Jay's MySpace page and Blog:
Jay's Page:
http://www.myspace.com/jayvotel
Jay's Blog:
http://blog.myspace.com/jayvotel
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