About Billy Jonas

For over thirty years, Billy Jonas — performer, singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and educator — has perfected the art of the neo-tribal hootenanny* with audiences around the globe. Using voice, guitar, and industrial re-percussion,* each concert is a soul-spelunking, heart healing, joy-filled journey.

“It began around an evening campfire in the summer of 1972 — Leaving on a Jet Plane and Blowing in the Wind rising with the sparks into the darkness… communal singing, guitars strumming, and a bucket thumping the back beat. 40 summer campers and 8 counselors became one big, glorious, harmonizing being. I remember thinking: wouldn’t it be great to carry this ecstatic connectedness, and musical magic out into the world?”
– Billy

Billy developed his craft in the late 1980‘s as a founding member of the Oberlin College Big Bang Theory performance art collective. He refined things further in Chicago during monthly “Bangalong with Billy” shows at the No Exit Cafe, and subsequently in the 1990‘s as a co-founder (with Bill Melanson) of the funky folk* duo The Billys.He currently tours with the Billy Jonas Band, with Abraham Jam (Muslim-Christian-Jewish trio), and solo. The Billy Jonas Band was honored with an invitation to perform at the White House in 2010.

Jonas has received numerous honors and awards, including an American Federation of Independent Musicians 1st place/Gold, multiple Parents Choice Golds, and a New York Times “Best” listing.

Originally from Chicago, Billy has lived in Asheville NC since 1991.