On the day of his first corporate fire drill, Jon Black heard two alarms go off one at his office and the other in his soul. Like countless others, he had been crammed into a small cubicle, working customer service for a software company in Charleston, SC, trapped in a corporate purgatory in which every day resembled the one before. Jon had moved to Charleston after graduating college in his home state of Georgia, and upon entering the work force took a good look around and realized something: this was not what he had expected. And then came the noise.
\"At first, I remember people just kind of looking around, confused. You could see people prairie-dogging (heads popping up over the tops of their cubicles) all wondering what they should do,\" says Black, \"Pretty soon, were all walking down these steps, exiting the building. We were to line up in this big open space according to our department, and ours was in the back. As I walked by all the other departments, I just remember thinking about how miserable everyone looked, how they all seemed to have this look of resignation like this was it for the rest of their lives. The whole thing was very surreal, like an out-of-body experience. I knew that day I had to get out.\"
For the next eight months, Jon planned his escape from corporate America, and in the spring of 2004, Jon officially left his cubicle to pursue a career in music. \"I knew when I walked out the door I was taking a chance. I was writing my own story, regardless of what ended up happening.\" Jon entered the studio and emerged with his self-funded The Rhythm of the Rising Sun, a collection of brash, emotionally-charged indie-pop songs. “The question that kept coming back to me was, ‘What if people quit doing what they were supposed to do and started doing what they were called to do?’”
Jon spent the next year and a half answering that very same question as he trekked from city to city across the U.S., performing at coffee houses, clubs, summer camps, bars, living rooms, small festivals, and even a few gazebos, selling nearly 2000 copies of Rhythm and base purely on the strength of his performances and word of mouth.
That following October of 2005, Black joined up with Athens, GA-based nonprofit label Rebuilt Records and entered the recording studio to record the follow-up to Rhythm - this time with Grammy-winning producer/engineer Mitch Dane (Jars of Clay, Billy Cerveny) at his Sputnik Studios in Nashville, TN. Three weeks later, Jon put the finishing touches on the aptly-titled album, The October Sky. Says Dane of the recording sessions, \"Jon was always willing to make art, not just record some songs.\" The October Sky (released April 11, 2006) represented a drastic step forward in Black’s development as a songwriter with its collection of twangy folk-rock anthems that found him getting back to his roots and optimistically looking into the future. The album, which spawned the International Acoustic Music Award “Folk/Americana” category-winning song, “My Days Are Numbered,” prompted fans and critics such as Americana UK’s David Cowling to ask, “Why isn’t this man well-known?”
Black, for his part, has chosen not to worry about such questions, choosing to try to write songs that are honest, truthful, and poignant. Black has also discovered a slightly more raucous barroom side on his upcoming Rebuilt release, Goodbye Golden Age (due out September 30). Recorded throughout 2007 at Tweed Recording Studios in Oxford, MS with Andrew Ratcliffe (The Damnwells, Colour Revolt, Will Hoge) and Paul Reeves at DOMUS in Atlanta, GA and mixed by Grammy-winner Andy Hunt (Buddy Guy, Glen Phillips), Golden Age comes is both a pat on the back and a sucker-punch. It is the story of the time since The October Sky, a time of personal defeats, depression, and the risk of failure, but ultimately of perseverance, hope, and redemption. \"I’m now on the other side. I feel that whatever happens now, I’ve accomplished something. Its an enormous sense of freedom.\"
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