cjayconrod.com

the artist next door

Bio

Born and raised in St. Louis, MO, I’ve always been drawn to cre­ative things with the strongest lean­ing toward music. I was blessed to have excel­lent vocal and instru­men­tal instruc­tors through­out my for­ma­tive years. I’ve been given oppor­tu­nity to explore many gen­res of music, from ital­ian arias and musi­cal the­ater to gospel and jazz. Although I don’t limit myself to any one cat­e­gory, I find myself most com­fort­able on the soul music scene mainly because it res­onates with me the most. I’m moved by music that speaks from the heart about real life. Favorite influ­ences of mine include Ste­vie Won­der, Donny Hath­away, Mar­vin Gaye, Shirley Horn, India.Arie, Eric Rober­son, Rah­saan Pat­ter­son, and Lalah Hathaway.

Through­out my career, I’ve been blessed with so many oppor­tu­ni­ties like record­ing with the St. Louis African Cho­rus on “A E Na O: The Sacred Music of Harcourt-Whyte” and singing back­ground for many noted gospel artists from St. Louis such as Khe­sha Bec­ton, Daugh­ters of Zion, and Jai. More recently, I’ve sung back­ground for up and com­ing soul artists such as Jada Avenue, CocoSoul, and Teresa Jenee. My most fre­quent and fruit­ful col­lab­o­ra­tions have been with pro­ducer and multi-instrumentalist Lamar Har­ris. In addi­tion to per­form­ing both locally and region­ally with him, I was also fea­tured on his CD/DVD “Live at the Bistro.” We’re cur­rently work­ing on a num­ber of projects includ­ing the much antic­i­pated “The Death of Love.” As a solo artist, I’ve per­formed relaxed acoustic sets includ­ing open­ing for inde­pen­dent artists like Sam Shaber, Teddy Gold­stein, and Erin Bode, as well as Lalah Hath­away. With a live band, the inten­sity goes up expo­nen­tially, mainly because I feed off the energy other musi­cians put out. This has been best exhib­ited by my shows at Suite Soul Spot and Cafe Soul. I’m cur­rently work­ing on my debut project, “For the Bro­ken & Mending.”