Jason Conley

Portfolio

Visual

Jason Conley has no visual portfolio.

Audio

Jason Conley has no audio portfolio.

Artist Statement / Bio

Jason Conley is probably whatever you think he is in your own mind. However he is a West Virginia born singer/songwriter.Who left the coal feilds at age 23 to find songs and play them.Hailing from a long line of gospel musicians and back porch bluegrass players. He channels everything that he loves and admires in anyone or anything he comes to know.Born in Boone co and raised on brushy fork of crawley creek, in the small town of chapmanville in Logan county.The son of a disabled guitar pickin coal miner and a Southern Virginia belle. Spent most of his early years hanging out with all the kids that smoked cigaretes,drank beer,Skipped school and got into fights.Started playing guitar at age 11 but it wasn't until age 17 he began singing along with his guitar riffs.Which were mostly vague impressions of his fathers versions of Hank Willam or Johnny Cash songs and Others like the Carter family and The Stanley Brothers, as well as Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Other sounds came along with time like any other person growing up in the 80's and 90's if you were listening to music you were catching on to the movements of it as well. However the most moving songs ever felt by Conley was as a child in a old primitive baptist church were his mother is a member as well as Ralph Stanley and family.Conley proclaims that setting through a hymn in that old 12 by 20 foot church house is an experience one never forgets. "There are no instuments or musical recordings in there church, its just all vocal harmony and the first time you hear it you feel like you should'nt be hearing it , I felt like i was invading someones privacy,someone's deepest feeling that they rarely show to anyone""Its the purest raw emotion I've ever heard" "You can truely hear the solid root of the Stanley Brothers sound in that church" "Leaves your skin crawling and your hairs standing,and almost always makes you cry." After several attemps at bands in his highschool years and after, he fatefully Ended up in West Palm Beach Florida at age 23 with a hand full of songs and pocket full of dirt. Conley went on to play in several different projects in Floridauntil additioning for a management company.Were he was approached by a Sony/ATV Publishing represenitive. Who insisted on him moving to Nashvilleto better his chances in the music scene. After realizing the dinosaur code of the Nashville songwriter scene.The appeal and excitment of it all was vanquished.However it was a definate turning point in his life and songwritting for ever more. "Nashville was like a living in a mirror ball,the streets ,venues and clubs are full of people doing the same thing.Trying to write a hit song and meet the connection of their destiny." "Which was a wonderful thing to be a part of for a while and it was definately fun to watch" The California connection came along in the form of Johnny Callahan. A Northern California Singer/songwriter who meet up with Conley in the Blue Bird cafe in Nashville. The two Proceeded to form a band called SlapShoeFly and went on to record the dungeon cuts in the fall of 2004 Soon enough Conley found himself in the windy pines of Northen California . Were he proceeded with Johnny Callahan and David Waymire in the SlapShoeFly and recorded 11 of his original songs on the first album 'Decades In The Grain' along with several collaberations with Callahan and Playing on 2 of his original works for the album. Now living and writting in Chico California. Conley has released 11 more of his Original tunes with Callahan and new bassist Tristan Behm on the new SlapShoeFly Album 'On The Trail Of The Sun' also playing on Callahan's tracks for the album. Conley Not Proclaiming any sound can still admitt that the music with the slapshoefly has a High-Lonesome Rebelish folkiness to it. Jason is currently now working on a solo album of songs written here in chico during the past year.Which will be available this summer.

artist writings

none

currently Jason Conley has no blog entries.