Larry Jay (https://www.larryjaymusic.com/) is flippant and fun at a time when so much of day-to-day life is anything but. His song Unscrew It lists in the verses things which have gone wrong, then delivers the chorus with a glorious ‘stuff it!’ attitude.
Let’s do it
Let’s do it
Why don’t we unscrew it?
Turn it loose
We’re on our way
It’s our independence day!
It’s a tuneful, upbeat, singalong kind of song, the perfect antidote for anyone who’s been dreaming of throwing everything against the wall and escaping lockdowns, masks, and the familiar four walls of working from home. In Jay’s trademark country-pop style, the song is “five chords and the truth”, straight, direct and from the heart.
The singer-songwriter recently moved all the way across the country from New York to Los Angeles, “to set my soul free” as he puts it. Larry Jay was the first runner up in many songwriting contests, including the well-known John Lennon Songwriting Contest, and has been told that he is a ‘really great songwriter’. He takes this as a huge compliment, which along with playing at the famous Troubadour venue in Los Angeles, proves that his soul has very much been set free by his choices.
Larry Jay has a very simple method of performing – just him, his guitar and his rhythm track loop. He has been told he sounds like Keith Urban, but he thinks he sounds like Neil Young. Given he has performed with Sonny Mone, who used to be in Neil Young’s Crazy Horse, this may not be too far from the truth. More recently Jay has also worked with Caeland Garner of Team Blake (The Voice). They made Jay’s #1 iTunes international smash single Wow together. Another song, released in March 2021, called Worldwide Party Day, came out close to the one year anniversary of the pandemic and mentions the lifting of many restrictions which followed. It was meant as a hopeful and happy tune, optimistic for the future and what it may bring.
In common with many musicians, Larry Jay has been streaming live work on social media during the pandemic. Larry’s platform of choice is Facebook, where he can be found doing a weekly livestream.
Aside from performing and writing, Larry has been volunteering with his local VA Hospitals and addiction recovery centers. He has recently returned to making music after a two decade hiatus to raise his family, and now his output is best described as ‘prolific’, as he has been releasing an average of one track every month. Not quite on the fabled levels of Prince, perhaps, but no small feat for someone with so many calls on his time. His releases Drunk on Dreams (#29 UK) Heaven, and Wow (#1 South Africa) have both reached the international iTunes charts, and his top ten most popular tunes alone on Spotify have at least 150,000 streams in total. All of the videos can be found on his website, and many have lyrics to allow for the perfect karaoke singalong. The days of buying magazines to learn lyrics to popular songs may be long gone, but YouTube videos can be just as helpful.
Larry’s other releases since late 2020 include Killer Song (with lyrics on this version), Here’s to Us and Lottery. He usually records his own compositions, but a quick look at his website will show that he’s also not averse to the occasional cover version. He also has a recurring theme of writing about dreams and their fulfillment, maybe because he’s managing to fulfill a few dreams of his own now.
His tunes and posts are available on Spotify, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, or via his website. In addition, Larry is happy to share unreleased songs with his mailing list, so anyone who likes to hear new music before the official network premiere ought to consider signing up.
Larry Jay’s music is the ideal remedy for pandemic blues. It’s full of major chords and is generally in a happy, upbeat country-style singalong format. Several songs are more traditional country, with twanging guitars and comic lyrics bemoaning the human condition, but the lyrics are so full of fun listeners can’t help but smile. His tunes are the perfect pick-me-up for a wet Monday morning commute, and he’ll make you start Friday’s homeward journey to the weekend with a smile too.