Jan Bell
Brooklyn Americana Music Festival – Talent Buyer, Producer, Artist
Expertise: Booking, Touring, Running a Festival
WANT TO DISCUSS YOUR PROJECTS WITH JAN?
She’s available for One-on-One Mentoring, Music Critiques, and presenting a Workshop on Running/Starting Your Music Event Workshop: SATURDAY
JAN Bell was an IMA winner for Best Alt. Country album 2005 the year her band The Maybelles – three-part harmony, guitar, violin and upright bass – went on to open for Emmylou Harris, Odetta, Wanda Jackson, and Steve Earle. Jolie Holland covers Jan’s songs and is a special guest on her album ‘Dream of the Miner’s Child’. Dedicated to her grandfather, the recording was a nominee at The 12th Independent Music Awards for BEST CONCEPT ALBUM. The award went to Jan’s old friends The Wiyos, who were brilliant advisors for The Maybelles first UK Tour.
Bell hails from Yorkshire, England and has made NYC her home for over twenty years. Old loading docks, the Archway under the Manhattan Bridge, derelict 19th century warehouses, vintage pick up trucks, and the abandoned waterfront made for many a live music stage Bell built before Dumbo became desirable. Those early days sowed the seeds of the Brooklyn Americana Music Festival now in year five. Fifty free shows for all ages at seven stages from Dumbo to Red Hook including Brooklyn Bridge Park. At least half of the line up are women artists. Now a multi award winner BKAMF has earned a place on many a NYC Top Ten list, and takes place the third weekend of September.
The 2019 album ‘Goodbye to the River’ has telling songs about living and working along the once sleepy Brooklyn waterfront in an amplified chapter of sweeping gentrification.
Press Quotes
Enchantingly fusing Anglo-Americana sounds Jan Bell has a wonderful knack of breathing new life into time worn folk tales and rare used human stories 4 STARS – Maverick Magazine, UK
Making waves in the home of country, from a Yorkshire coal mining background whose roots still show…A latter day Loretta Lynn. – The Times, London UK.
‘Perhaps growing up in Nottinghamshire is what sets Jan apart form the run of local lady folkies…old time spareness. Gorgeous’ -Chuck Eddy, The Village Voice
‘Bell’s reworking of what has become an antic hybrid genre – is remarkably nuanced.’ – Edd Hurt, Nashville Scene.