Jan Bell: Bio/Awards
Awards
Independent Music Awards - Alt. Country Album of the year 2008. Winner (tied) People's Choice/Vox Populi Award.
WINNER NJ folk fest singer songwriter Top Six 2007
WINNER First Place New Orleans Sam Adams Singer/songwriter (Grayson Capps also placed in Winners) 2004
Audience Award Title Track in Malibu Film Festival 'Between the Bridges' documentary.
Awards with The Maybelles
TOP 10 Folk Albums (Village Voice 2006)
TOP 10 for Magnet Magazine - Jolie Hollands Favorite singer/songwriters.
Top 12 DIY Performing Songwriter "Good old fashioned fun!"
An English Cowgirl in Brooklyn
Jan Bell performs solo and with her Brooklyn based band the Cheap Dates. She also tours with Old timey country Trio The Maybelles.
Jan Bell and the cheap dates set out playing in her neighborhood - d.u.m.b.o. by the Brooklyn Bridge as part of her Urban Cowgirl Cabaret Tribute Series, turning old maritime loading docks into Live Music Stages.
Pedal Steel, violin, banjo and upright bass would squeeze onto a pick up truck stage outside an iron workers bar that stood there for a century. Singing original country blues, and songs by their honky tonk heroes - three part harmony sailed up above the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, the roof tops, and nyc water towers.
Jan grew up in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, England, and spent several years on the back roads of north america, learning songs from the rural south and mountain towns. When she first heard the songs of women such as Mother Maybelle, Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard - she felt right at home.
Wherever she goes, people always ask how come an english girl is singing so many american folk songs? Jan reckons the root of many of the songs she loves, are back in the coal mining country side where she was born and raised.
"Sometimes the main difference is in the name of a river, a town, a girl or a boy - but the melodies, and the stories are essentially the same. When folks from northern Britain sailed across the Atlantic- especially if all they knew was mining - they often settled in the Appalachian mountains. For generations, they stayed there, and the music was not only kept alive - but thrived. When i first went to Virginia and Kentucky, I could hear broad Yorkshire in the way people spoke. They had to be true dreamers, to get on the boat back then, and you can hear all that sheer hope and faith and courage in the songs."
NYC Highlights
*New Album - Songs for Love Drunk Sinners (2007) Produced by Samantha Parton (Be Good Tanyas)
Guest vocals on closing track from:
*Jolie Holland, who covers several of Jan Bell's songs on international tours, invited Jan to join her on stage at NYC guitar festival (Elizabeth Cotton tribute w/ Taj Mahal and Mike Seeger) and several other NYC stages.
*Woody Guthrie Archives : invitation as Guest Composer for Found Lyrics.
* Manhattan Women's prison Christmas Party, where everyone started dancing - on the chorus of 'Cowgirl Blues'
"...can't see the stars a-shiniin' - feel like bustin' loose!".
"The inmates truly loved Jan's music. Wonderful!" Carolyn Demerest, President NY State Women Judges Association.
*Playing and Producing Little Red Hen Music Stage at the dumbo Arts Festival (7 yrs running).
"Jan's stage was the highlight of the festival!" Alison Tocci (publisher) Time Out NY.
Support/Split Bills
Support/Opening for:
*Emmylou Harris (AR)
*Wanda Jackson(NYC) with The Maybelles.
*Ray Charles & his Orchestra w/ Mary Fly (AR)
Split Bills include:
The Be Good Tanyas, Jolie Holland, Myshkin, The Road Dog Divas, Grayson Capps, The Wiyos, M Shanghai Stringband, Devon Sproule, Jesse Harris, Maya Dorn, Laura Freeman, Mike West/Truck Stop Honeymoon.
Founder : Little Red Hen Music 1999
An itinerant community of musicians and songwriters Jan Bell met along the way.