Multi-instrumentalist Jeff Paris currently tours and records with Alligator Records blues artist Coco Montoya on B3, piano & guitar.
He started his professional career in 1976, touring and recording with Grammy winner and R&R hall of famer Bill Withers, on keys and guitar as well. He followed that with tours and/or albums with Dan Fogelberg, Stanley Clarke, George Duke, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, A Taste of Honey, Dave Stewart, and Ringo Starr and Keb Mo.
At the same time, early on, songwriting became his main focus, and he became a staff songwriter for A&M Records, PolyGram Songs, and Warner Int’l. His songs have been covered by Robert Cray, Jeffrey Osborne, Sheena Easton, Lita Ford, Vixen, Mr. Big, Tower of Power, The Four Tops, Billy Preston, Y&T, and many more.
“I started with folk music in the late ‘50s, and was lucky to live through a time of incredible diverse musical styles. I just dove in and got swept away with all of it. My big artist influences were B.B. King, Stevie Winwood, Stevie Wonder, Edgar Winter, Hendrix, Brian Auger, Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles, Motown artists, and then, somehow, Clapton/Cream, Paul Rodgers’ bands, Def Leppard . . . radio guitar rock. The exposure to all that stuff drove my songwriting career. I said yes to everything.
“I’ve always been a Hammond fanatic. My motto to pretty much every kind of music is “Let’s try the B3 on it!” I was overdubbing keyboards on the band Cinderella’s album in the 80s, working with producer Andy Johns (Led Zeppelin/Houses of the Holy). Tom Keifer, the leader, is a glam rock cat with his heart in the blues, and when we got to “Shake Me,” I recited my mantra: “Let’s try the Hammond.” They flipped out and put it on more songs. So they had to hire an organ player for the tour. True story.”
“I’d like to think after years of sequencing music and programming drums, the audience is craving authenticity – people playing music together in a room, performing songs telling real stories. Maybe they don’t know they want that… but when they hear it I can tell they want more.”
