Artists:JJ Baron

J.J. Baron, a country-tinged singer-songwriter performs what he calls alternative country - think Hank Williams meets early Dylan meets the Counting Crows meets Jerry Lee Lewis.

"I'm a person who seems to be more at home on stage than off," says the Providence-born Baron, who faced his first audience at age 4 as he stood behind his father, and his father's big drum kit, while his father performed at a Rhode Island club. "Those first few times I was terrified to be up there, even though nobody could even see me, and I can remember thinking very distinctly that I could never do that for a living. And yet by age 16 I was learning to translate what I was feeling to an audience and by now, I can't not do this."

In his young and prolific life, Baron has put out three albums and a DVD and has begun to make a name for himself through his live performance. When not headlining his own shows, he has opened for folk singers Catie Curtis and Guy Clark.

Baron grew up a self-acknowledged music fanatic, finding something to like in most every genre. He found a special affinity for the music of Hank Williams, even as he was listening to and dissecting the way some of his other favorites - the Beatles, Bob Dylan - put together a song.

At the age of 11, Baron took up the guitar, although he took lessons only briefly. By 13, he was holding himself to a strict daily schedule to try to get down some of the songs he found he was hearing in his head. "By 11 or 12, I was humming songs to myself and then I realized I needed to write - to let my mind catch up with what my hands were playing on the guitar," Baron says. "It was sort of ridiculous. I told myself I had to write three songs every day," says Baron. "Needless to say, they weren't very good, but that helped me to develop the tools to be able to eventually write the better stuff."

His songwriting is catchy and quirky, with bits of Americana frequently thrown in - references to Elvis and Hank Williams - and the melodies range from old-time country (Merle Haggard/Johnny Cash era) to up-tempo, piano-based tunes. "I am writing about intensely honest emotion and part of the reason I felt almost like I had to start writing was because I wasn't hearing that kind of honesty in other songs," says Baron. "I love to write. I almost have to write and I want to use my energies on what matters."

On his web site Baron's so-called biography tells that he has been a goat farmer, a survivor of a sunken ship and a Civil War soldier - all to pass the time as he waited for Edison to come along and invent the phonograph. It also indicates that he is approximately 300 years old. "Okay. A friend wrote that and posted it, but I loved it and I left it there. I love the idea of myth and storytelling, and some of those tales existed within my own family history," says Baron. Pieces of his true heritage - his family's origins in Armenia and within the Lakota Indian tribe - make their way into the pseudo-tell-all. However, Baron is content to let his performances tell his real life story. "This is the thing, from the first time you see me put on a show, you're seeing the embodiment of me up there," says Baron. "From the stage, I tell you these things: these are my experiences. These are my songs. This is my life.".