Here is: Start Over.
About me: I’m a singer/songwriter/guitarist and psychologist, in my late 50’s. To me, songwriting and therapy are both about truths that need to be expressed, heard, and accepted for healing and wholeness. When a song, born of necessity and performed gracefully, unites performer and listeners; that, for me, is what it’s about.
I loved the sound of guitar as a child and began playing as soon as I could, studying with Frank D’Amato, legendary guitar teacher in New Haven. By high school I was playing jazz, sitting in at The Cotton Club (New Haven’s stop on the organ jazz circuit) and playing (and helping direct) jazz at The Exit coffeehouse, which featured jazz on Thursday and introduced me to folk music on Friday and Saturday.
I played in bar bands in high school and college, then picked up some classical and flamenco chops, but it wasn’t until after grad school that I realized, encouraged by my wife, Cynthia (who has an artistic background, unlike me) that the songs in my head might be worth the time needed to actually create. The folk, jazz, blues, rock, pop, country, classical and international music I’d heard and played was coming together somewhere in my mind, around personal and social themes. I formed a band, “This World,” to play my songs, then played with John Getman, a gifted keyboardist.
My first cd, My Heart is Open, was recorded live in John’s living room in 1996. We hoped to get a demo and a few cassettes to sell until we could make a studio recording. Then John was diagnosed with brain cancer, and quickly gone. Several years later I cleaned up the original recording as best I could and made the cd. It has good songs and good licks, but both the performance and recording are rough. It’s on my website, www.guitaratlarge.com.
Start Over is my first studio-recorded cd, and is where I’ve reinvented myself as a mostly solo performer. It took nearly two years to record, working around my psychological schedule, and includes five guitars. The songs on Start Over, all original, are (all genre labels approximate!):
1. Market Price (neo-19th century): homage to Emily Dickinson
2. Appearance of Virtue (neo-baroque): judging by appearance (harmony by Rachel Troy)
3. Enough to Drink (country): courage, cowardice and alcohol
4. Good Morning Dad (folk/country): song for my father (cello and harmony by Ellen O'Hayer, guitar and harmony by Elia Einhorn, of Scotland Yard Gospel Choir)
5. Jaime and Donna (Afro-pop): love and unexpected couples
6. Party On (folk/country): to a party girl
7. Joys of Liberty (neo-flamenco): “leadership” and the war in Iraq
8. Ghost Wind (folk): the American past in the present (harmony by Elia Einhorn)
9. Start Over (folk/country): we all have to, sooner or later
10. Ain’t Dead Yet (calypso/folk/rock): are you awake or asleep in your life?
The guitars on Start Over include:
1. An acoustic slope D by Dana Bourgeois, custom made for the 2002 summer NAMM (National Association of Music Manufacturers) show
2. A commissioned acoustic 12-string I designed with luthier Tim Bridwell, with Fishman gooseneck internal mike retrofit
3. A classical guitar by Cordoba
4. A flamenco guitar by Mexican luthier Carlos Pinas
5. My Martin circa 1968 acoustic-electric, with original pick-up and Fishman bridge retrofit
Officially released on 1/1/07.
I hope you like Start Over. For feedback, interviews, booking, covers, questions or comments, please email.
Review in the Evanston RoundTable Newspaper, March 21, 2007
“Start Over”--Jay Einhorn
A CD Review By Brian Murphy
Jay Einhorn describes his album, “Start Over,” as a “folk-pop-rock-country-blues-classical-afro-fusion,” but I think his music can be best described as that of a man free to explore his thoughts through words and his acoustic guitar.
Einhorn’s introspective, minimalist approach, one of gentle guitar noodling and Burl Ives-reminiscent intonation, creates a mellow atmosphere, where crises of the past have given way to a wistful yet hardened view.
Einhorn finds inspiration in the poems of Emily Dickinson in “Market Price,” while life experience serves as a muse for “Enough to Drink” and “Start Over.” The unabashed honesty and straightforward storytelling of each track of “Start Over” elevate this artist to modern-day folk-hero status. His grasp of several musical genres makes him as accessible at a coffee house as at Bill’s Blues Bar during open-mike brunch.
Fans of former Men at Work frontman Colin Hay’s solo efforts should particularly appreciate Jay Einhorn’s “Start Over.” Though stylistically similar, the two artists differ in that Hay’s prefers simple lyrics, while Einhorn delves into the complicated poetry of a man who has spent a lifetime searching for the answers, and is finally ready to speak.
Read more...