JW Weir has been in the music business for over 30 years. A singer/songwriter out of high school, J.W. joined his first band, a folk/rock trio called Cloverleaf. This drove J.W.’s creativity and he began to crank out original music at a fervid pace. His band was also covering songs from Jimmy Buffett, Emmylou Harris & John Prine to Willie Nelson, Merle Haggerd & Hank Williams. After a couple of years J.W. embarked on a solo/songwriting career.
In 1982 and 1983, tapping into the Urban Cowboy craze, J.W. released two 45 single records that achieved airplay from Texas to Arizona. The four originals contained in these singles were: “Texas, Texas, All Night Long, Never Love the Same Way Twice, Beer and Setups and Walker Was the First One Down”.
Also in 1982, J.W. was a featured songwriter at the prestigous Kerrville Folk Festival. Chosen to play in the "New Folk" songwriter competition, JW followed that up in 1983 when JW was also chosen to host a Ballad tree session.
The rest of the 80’s saw J.W. in his honky-tonk band period. "J. W. Weir and the Walkers"(later known as the "Dive Bombers”), were playing, raising hell, and generally making a musical living around the Gulf Coast region. The Divebombers also performed 4 years at the Houston International festival from 1989 to 1992.
In the early 1990’s, J.W. tired of the music grind and semi-retired from the biz. Living at the beach, JW jumped into the world of saltwater fishing, J.W. became so obsessed with saltyworld it just inspired him to pickup his Martin guitar and crank out new tune's. The songs written during these years became the foundation of his new "Tropical” attitude towards music.
Returning from a fishing trip one day in 1992, J.W. saw a billboard that had gone up advertising the beach road as the Bluewater Highway. Although the water is usually muddy along this stretch, J.W. managed to turn it into a thing of beauty. As J.W. tells it, “I just couldn’t believe they would call this the Bluewater Highway! There's no bluewater for at least 50 miles or so. Hell that name hit me right between the eyes and I pulled over and wrote the song in like 10 minutes. To me, it was easy to write because that song was all about my life up to that point. Yup--muddy with a little patch of bluewater at the end of the tunnel”
All original compositions, Bluewater Highway has been J.W.’s biggest success story to date. It’s been played in the Netherlands, Holland, Texas, Louisiana, Maryland, California, and Florida. And now globally with the Internet, it's more popular than ever. Originally released as a cassette album of 9 songs, Bluewater Highway now comes in a CD with 4 extra acoustic originals added in 2001.
Here’s a few of the artists J.W. has opened or done shows with: Lyle Lovett, Clint Black, Lightning Hopkins, Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams, Bellamy Brothers, Steve Fromholz, Steve Young, David Rodriguez, Shake Russell, Roy Head, John Grimaudo, Nancy Griffith, Richard Dobson, Trish Murphy, Sisters Morales, Issac Peyton Sweat, Joey Long,and Mickey Cates, A1A band.
JW is currently recording a new Album due out sometime later in 2008. Be sure to look for it at your favorite store and at JW's venue's. or at JWWEIR.COM
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