Biography

J-Rad Cooley’s album, Yard Sale, is a combination of tasteful blues with a soulful New Orleans twist, smooth vocals, top notch harmonica playing, and a variety of other roots music. The album contains all original material written by J-Rad Cooley - besides one track, ‘Baby Won’t You Please Come Home’.

"It all began in 2020, when I got my tax return and my car got totaled which I received some money for. I then bought a cheap car to get me around, and spent the rest of the money on recording equipment so I could start messing around with some home recordings, I didn’t know much about recording at the time, nor do I now. I eventually recorded a demo of the track on the album “My Wallets Dry” and sent it to my good friend Tony Holiday who is in Memphis. And he loved my recording and the song so much that he said he wanted me to come out to Tennessee and record an album and that he wanted to produce it for me which took me by surprise cause I had always looked up to him as a harmonica player. A few weeks later, Tony gave me a call and said that he was passing through town and that he wanted to talk more about this album idea that he’d been mentioning. I then went to meet up with him and it went well, so we went over a few more things and decided to start recording a few months later in January 2021. The album was such a unique experience because I hadn’t even met a lot of the musicians that we’re going to be playing on my album. But I had faith and I knew that it would all come together smooth if I went into it with the right mindset, and it did. And I felt so honored to have such amazing players on this album. Zach Kasik who recorded and co-produced the album was a really awesome guy to work with in the studio. he had a lot of cool ideas that contributed to the sound we got in the end, and I had an absolute blast at his studio Wild Feather Recordings. We got most of the recording done in January 2021, and had to come back for a second session with guitar player Aubrey McCrady, in April 2021. I’m very glad to see it all come together and I can’t wait to share it with everyone."

Yard Sale features Grammy nominated musician, Victor Wainwright, from Victor Wainwright and The Train. "Victor is the one of the best boogie-woogie piano players of our time” Cooley says...

Yard Sale is produced by harmonica player and singer/songwriter, Tony Holiday, from Blue Heart Records, who is currently living in Memphis, Tennessee. Cooley began writing Yard Sale in November, 2020. The album was recorded in Hendersonville, Tennessee in January 2021.