Basement Band & Jones St Boys

The Jones Street Boys are steeped in roots of traditional American music with a focus on songwriting, story-telling, harmony singing, & musicianship, taking tradition & pushing it forward. Started in 2003 by Danny Erker & Jonathan Hull (members of Brooklyn bluegrass collective, The Cobble Hillbillies) The Jones Street boys are a result of years of exploring various types of American music. The two musicians met at NYC's infamous Baggot Inn Bluegrass jam in 2001, & continued to play traditional bluegrass around NY for a few years, which led them to share the stage at the '06 Merlefest Midnight Jam with Nickel Creek, Gillian Welch, Peter Rowan, & others. Although born out of the bluegrass scene, The Boys are by no means a bluegrass band. Danny & Jonny started writing songs that were outside the genre, & rearranging bluegrass favorites (like Bill Monroe & Peter Rowan's Walls of Time) incorporating more space & various other musical influences. The Boys started as two members & six instruments (banjo, dobro, harmonica, mandolin, guitar, accordion), but the project then took on a whole new life with the addition of Jonathan Benedict (keyboards, piano, vocals), Walter Wells (bass, guitars, vocals), & Sam Rockwell (drums, vocals) who helped grow the scope of the sound by leaps & bounds. The result is a band steeped in roots of traditional American music with a focus on songwriting, storytelling, harmony singing, & musicianship, taking tradition & pushing it forward. The Jones Street Boys are currently finishing up their first full-length album for local Brooklyn indie, Smith Street Records, & will be releasing their album this spring.