Biography

“You’re the real deal. You can play, you can sing…you are terrific”
Howard Stern

“One of the most important voices in modern soul music”
La Vanguardia, Spain

Jonah Smith is that rare musician with the range to write a big rock song or a simple folk song. Most impressive is his ability to weave his styles into a concert that feels like an exalted experience. His soulful voice gives everything he sings a classic feel and led the Wall Street Journal to say his “music calls to mind J.J. Cale, early Van Morrison.” His voice has also gotten him invites to sing with some of his heroes like Los Lobos and Little Feat as well as being invited twice to perform at Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble in Woodstock, NY.

His seven albums of original material display a wealth of American musical history that has delighted critics and concertgoers for years. The New York Times perhaps said it best: “Mr. Smith’s songs are equally well suited to downtown lounges and rural front porches.” But even that description no longer describes the artist that spent the summer of 2014 barreling through the rounds of the NBC hit competition show, America’s Got Talent. Smith and his band made it all the way to the Semi Final round by showing the judges and America that he belongs on the biggest stages in the world.

After Smith’s first audition on the show, Howard Stern said, “You are the best thing I’ve heard in years, you are fantastic. I would buy your albums right now because you are a unique artist”. Through Smith’s performances on the highest-rated American show of the summer his music has opened up to a new world of people that were taken with his voice and his authenticity. Smith, for his part, says that performing live at Radio City Music Hall in front of 14 million people changed his perspective and made him realize that he wants to continue to play big stages. The world knows now he is ready.