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Jay Boy Adams Invited To Join Stephen Stills for Upcoming Tour COMFORT, TEXAS - Texas singer/songwriter Jay Boy Adams, whose current CD, The Shoe Box, has become a Top Five hit on the Americana Music Chart, will not only open as a solo act for the legendary Stephen Stills on the musician’s upcoming East Coast tour, but will also play some guitar and sing background vocals with Stills as part of his band. The Stephen Stills tour comes on the heels of an exceedingly busy spring for Adams, whose February 6 release of his long overdue CD, The Shoe Box, has become a staple for several weeks in the Top Five on the Americana Music Chart. Released on Rockin’ Heart/Smith Entertainment Records, The Shoe Box contains a soulful mixture of country, rock and blues, and demonstrates Adam’s intuitive ability to capture the heartbreak of daily life in a song. The album features guest appearances by Lee Roy Parnell, Jack Ingram, Marty Stuart and Asleep At the Wheel’s Ray Benson. “I’ve been listening to The Shoe Box, and I love it. Jay Boy Adams is a great musician and a story teller in the true Texas tradition,” explained Stills. A native of Colorado City, Texas, in the South Plains of West Texas, Adams grew up steeped in the same sorts of influences that fueled the music of Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Terry Allen and Butch Hancock, all of whom hailed from nearby Lubbock. Earlier West Texas musical icons such as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and Bob Wills also left their mark. In 1972, Adams was signed to a management contract by legendary Texas music Svengali Bill Ham, of Lone Wolf Management. Ham, who also kick-started the careers of ZZ Top and Clint Black, put Adams on the road opening for ZZ and caring for Billy Gibbons’ guitars. Next, Adams was signed to Atlantic Records and recorded two albums; Jay Boy Adams (1978) and Fork In the Road (1979), which included an appearance by Jackson Browne. Those vinyl albums have been compared to the legendary first album by another Texan, Willis Alan Ramsey, and have become much sought-after by collectors. And though they generated considerable sales and radio airplay, Jay Boy’s unique music was neither country or boogie rock, as his record company tried to market him; rather it was closer to the sound of the West Coast rock bands of the ‘70s, steeped in what has now come to be known as Americana music. Adams toured from coast to coast with some of the biggest names in the business, but he continued to live in Texas, where he felt grounded, and where artistic inspiration lay always close at hand. In 1982, he got off the merry-go-round and left the music business and the spotlight behind, but never left the music itself. Adams later started Roadhouse Transportation, carving out a very successful business providing tour buses to many of the same acts he used to tour with. He married and fathered children and, as the saying goes, got on with his life. But he never put down the guitar entirely, and he had friends who never stopped rooting for him. It was country singer/songwriter Lee Roy Parnell and J.W. Williams (an old friend from Texas Tech University and later Lone Wolf Management) who encouraged Jay Boy to step onto the stage again. In March of 1997, Parnell invited Adams to join him onstage on the spur of the moment at a concert in San Antonio. Adams found himself with a guitar in his hands, onstage, for the first time in five years, and his love for live performance was re-kindled. He decided he would go back home, dust off the cobwebs and get back to work. The Shoe Box was produced by Jay Boy Adams and Bakersfield, California-based Monty Byrom, best-known for his work with the under-appreciated group Big House, and contains a dozen songs that each represents a snapshot and recollections of Jay Boy’s life throughout the years. Its vision of true Americana lifestyle and values that has resonated with radio programmers and music fans alike. Whether performing solo or with his power-packed touring band The Roadhouse Scholars, Jay Boy Adams’ gift for telling a story through song will gratify both longtime fans and those discovering Adams and his music for the first time. |
