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MP3 Josiah Venter - Hello
6 MP3 Songs in this album (23:13) !
Related styles: Rock: Acoustic, Folk: Folk-Rock, Type: Acoustic
People who are interested in Ben Harper Jason Mraz Ray Lamontagne should consider this download.
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Josiah Venter was born in New Haven, CT on a beautiful spring day, the eighth of May to be exact. During his early years Josiah remembers well his mother singing and playing folk songs on her guitar when friends and family gathered, and he notes these memories as the original, musical seeds planted. Inspired to play something, Josiah began piano lessons at the age of six. Sadly, these lessons lasted only two years and he would not pick up another instrument until his senior year of high school. “I think a lot of the reason why it took me so long to begin playing something again was because I hated the lessons as a child and because I was so hyper-active that I lacked the patience to sit down and begin a slow, methodical process. To this day it proves challenging pursuing something that doesn’t reveal immediate results.” Like most people, despite not playing an instrument, Josiah loved entering the world of music as a dedicated listener. The first tape he ever received was The Beach Boys, a tape he played every night while falling asleep. At the age of thirteen, Josiah’s musical world was turned upside down upon hearing Thelonious Monk’s “Monk’s Dream.” He is still trying to recover.
From the start, Josiah had been exposed to a wide variety of music. His older sister and current folk singer/songwriter, Molly Venter, compiled a towering collection of female folk artists that came to provide the soundtrack for family road-trips, much to Josiah’s consternation. “I was too young to understand the power of their lyrics,” he recalls, “but looking back I can credit those folk artists for creating the awareness I now intend to bring in my own lyrical writing. I must also give a shout-out to my sister Molly, she’s amazing.”
Jazz spoke to Josiah early and often. After Thelonious Monk thoroughly confused him, he found himself migrating towards Jazz vocal legends such as Armstrong, Holliday, Simone, Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, and his favorite, Frank Sinatra. An early neighborhood business in lawn services helped fund this musical addiction that soon spilled into the Beatles, Paul Simon, Dave Matthews, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and many, many more. Josiah sang in his high-school choir and all-male A Cappella group and was very active in sports, another deep-rooted passion. “I loved singing, I could sing all day long and most of the time did, though I also loved my sports. With every tossing of the penny into wishing wells, I wished for a career in the NHL. The Rangers winning the Stanley Cup in 1994, man, I knew every player on that team. I’ve been blessed to be a Yankees fan and the Giants in 2007, well, that tops it all. Now I’m just waiting on my Knicks.” Josiah played multiple sports year-round, captaining both his high-school varsity soccer and swimming teams while lettering in lacrosse.
Upon his arrival at Kenyon College in 2001, Josiah realized his dreams of becoming a professional athlete had been nothing more than dreams. After just his third early- morning, mandatory workout and practice Josiah hung up his varsity cleats and goggles and began a collegiate career dedicated to Club sports and A Cappella. “That was really hard for me. I had been active in organized sports from the moment I could walk. I had learned a lot in sports – most importantly, what it takes to work with different kinds of people striving towards the same goal. However, while I love being active, it’s got to be on my time.” As is the case with most experiences in life, when one door closes, another opens. For Josiah, the door now wide open was playing guitar, often times taking priority over term papers and even class attendance. It wasn’t until his senior year, when Josiah stumbled into an African American History class, that another element of college received as much of his time and passion. Early into the semester Josiah found himself sitting in his professor’s office talking endlessly about race. “Race was always something that really intrigued me though I never quite knew how or when to discuss it. We grew up understanding that legally, everything had been done for racial equality. But deep down you knew there was still a lot of crazy energy surrounding race. The time shared with my professor provided me a means of discussing race for the first time really. To me, there’s nothing as potent and curious as race – the duality of it; how on one hand it means not much at all yet on the other it’s so loaded and powerful and beautiful and confusing. It’s simply a fire inside of me and I hope, through my music, to create an environment for others to be become both more aware of race and more comfortable discussing it.” Josiah graduated in 2005 with a degree in Anthropology and a semester in Perugia, Italy under his belt.
Josiah understood that pursuing music full-time, like anything, would demand a lot of sacrifices. Still feeling the need to travel with no commitments, he picked up his guitar and spent the next thirteen months living and traveling in Argentina and Idaho. He moved to Brooklyn in 2007 and shortly thereafter, released his first LP “It’s About Time,” recorded with his cousin Tevis Marshall in Richmond, VA. After several months of gigging in and around New York City, Josiah started feeling an overwhelming sense of confusion. “I felt like there was a lot of stuff I could be doing, or maybe should and or shouldn’t be doing. I felt like I needed some guidance from somebody in the industry.” Shortly after, Josiah began a long-distance business relationship with a guitar legend living in Nasvhille. Fifteen months later, Josiah had not performed one live show. “A lot of the work I did with this man was very valuable and looking back, I realize the experience, like any, had a lot to teach me. However, I was overly anxious for somebody else to ‘make things happen.’ While I do believe it takes a team to get an artist going, just as it takes a village to raise a child so to speak, the artist himself has got to take on a lot of responsibility and become business savvy. I still struggle with this but I’m grateful for being more aware and in turn more empowered.” Josiah soon cut ties and embarked on his most recent project, a six-track EP, “Hello,” which was recorded in Manhattan with veteran producer Gary Haase.
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