165 stories from Jason Robert Brown
It's time once again for the JRB Summer Karaoke Competition! Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! I did this once before, back in 2008, and to my shock and amazement, I got over 200 ent…
My first concert at the Red Mountain Theatre Company was back in 2006 (when they had a different name), and I've been back almost every year since then, always amazed at the incredible talen…
As Songs for a New World evolved over the course of my first five years in New York City, I was absorbing a lot of different music in that way that is really only possible when you live by y…
I was interviewed for Scott Brown's feature in this week's New York magazine. My interview was cut and pasted to the point where I'm not certain it makes any sense, but heck, I'm adorable. A…
My editor at Hal Leonard, the estimable Rick Walters, called me in 2010 with the idea that we should do a book-and-CD folio of me playing accompaniments to my own songs, with a male and fema…
I've always sort of liked the Drama Desk Awards. Over the years, I've appreciated that they really did try to be inclusive of a wide swath of New York theater, not just big-money Broadway sh…
An unbelievable night with Anika, who was even more brilliant than ever, and a fantastic band in the gorgeous Broad Stage at the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center. Sold out with al…
In less than two weeks, the amazing Anika Noni Rose will join me and a blazing eight-piece band for a one-night-only blowout at the gorgeous BROAD STAGE in Santa Monica! Anika and I did this…
I think these folks are doing important and beautiful work and they need all the help they can get spreading the word. I hope Kony can be stopped. I hope we can make it happen.KONY 2012 from…
So I had this friend. An old girlfriend, actually, who is now (I swear this is true) a Christian missionary who serves mostly in Thailand. And last night she posted, as her Facebook status, …
A wild and wacky night at the Woodland Opera House! Apparently all of this traveling is catching up with me " I didn't put together the set list before the show, so I was just winging it for…
Thanks to Wally Jones and the whole gang at Fort Worth's historic Casa Mañana Theatre for bringing me and Shoshana down to Texas to have a foot-stompin' good time. The theater itself look…
I've been playing "Vienna" for a long time " it's one of those songs that I can pull out at a piano bar or a party when it doesn't feel like it's the right kind of room to do one...
The awesome folks at Starving Artists Studios in Orlando, FL brought me down South for a concert and masterclass, and I brought along Gary Sieger, my longtime guitarist, because his entire f…
I got a weird and huffy comment this morning on yesterday's blog about "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant." Perhaps this guy was annoyed by my incessant Twittering about the Billy …
When I said I was going to cover The Stranger in its entirety, I knew (as did you all) that what I really meant is that I was going to have to deal with "Scenes From An Italian Restaura…
As good as you think Shoshana Bean is, you haven't heard anything until you hear her in her hometown. Every time we get to sing together is a privilege, and we'll be doing it again at the en…
There's a fun tradition in gospel music of taking secular love songs and, with the smallest changes in the lyric " a pronoun here, a reversal of direction there " turning them into love song…
The second track on The Stranger is the title track, a song that on the original album bounces in turn from smoky film noir jazz to Steely Dan-style rock to tropical disco and back again ove…
A warm and wonderful crowd at the Falls Theatre at ACT last night " my first solo concert ever in Seattle, and it felt like home. Thank you all for being so welcoming and for laughing at my …
Billy Joel's LP The Stranger was released at the end of September, 1977, and I'd guess it made its way to our house in Rockland County about two months later, presumably because my mom or da…
Mostly the same songs as last night, but with one significant difference. Before the show, Sho and I were told that some members of the audience were disappointed not to hear "Stars and…
My first concert in about six months, and what a pleasure to do it in front of a sold-out house here at the Columbia Club, and with Shoshana Bean singing so gorgeously all night. Thanks to L…
At some point last night, I reached 13,000 followers on Twitter. What makes that particular number extra cool is that the day I hit 13,000 is three years to the day from 13's opening night o…
There isn't much I can say about this song or the events that inspired it. I don't perform it very often anymore because it now feels like a promise that wasn't kept. But for several years a…
