Album Notes

More than just a singer/songwriter, Joe West is a post modern storyteller with a keen sense of the comedy and tragedy hidden in the margins of 21st Century America. "A poet laureate of the trailerpark." Borrowing from the subversive wit of Mark Twain and the punk swagger of Lou Reed, Joe's songs are four minute pulp novels that are set in a captivating world inhabited by misfits. According to one reviewer, Joe West is "a brave new voice in American music...a visionary slice of Americana."

Thru the early 1990's, Joe performed music and theater in New York City. He was a member of several Off-Off Broadway theater companies and was a regular street performer and folk club troubador. But in 1997, Joe moved to Austin, Texas where he formed Joe West And The Sinners, a bizarre Alt-Country band which immediately created a buzz, earning fans and a regular spot at Austin's world famous Continental Club. It was there that Joe and his band shared the stage with such Texas legends as Jon Dee Graham, Dale Watson, and Wayne "The Train" Hancock. In 1999 Joe's first self-released CD ,JAMIE WAS A BOOZER, was voted as one of the "Top Ten Texas Platters" by the Austin Chronicles Critic's Poll and Joe was voted one of the "Top Male Vocalists " by the Chronicles' Reader's Poll.

In 2001, Joe returned to his hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico where he became a local mainstay, holding a weekly residency at the notorious Cowgirl Hall of Fame. And in 2002, signed on with with Frogville Records, an independent label focused on the fringes of alternative country music. Frogville supported the recording of his last two CDs; SOUTH DAKOTA HAIRDO and THE HUMAN CANNONBALL. Both albums have received marvelous reviews and have charted in the Top 5 on both the Freeform Americana Radio Chart and the Euro-Americana Radio Chart.

Since then Joe has toured extensively in the United States and Europe, sharing the stage with an ecclectic list of artists such as Sarah Lee Guthrie, Iris DeMent, Mojo Nixon and the Violent Femmes.