Nate Jones blends folk and neo-soul

April 10, 2014 at 12:00a.m.

Nate Jones

Like an author living in various pockets of the world before he writes his version of the great American novel, Northeast Ohio native Nate Jones has spent the past decade on a musical journey.

While dabbling in music during high school, including a cover band that kicked out an amazing version of the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” Jones attended college at Tulane University. Sure, the school’s music-business program is solid, but you get the sense that living in New Orleans was the real draw for Jones, who became a regular performer at Big Easy venues such as Tipitina’s and Howlin’ Wolf Club.

“It’s New Orleans, so the music there is also funkier and more soulful than really anywhere else in the world,” Jones said. “And it’s hard to not absorb the culture and the sounds and rhythms. It took a while for it to blend with what I was familiar with already.”

From there, Jones hit the road playing any club show he could. Eventually, he returned home to Cleveland where he formed an acoustic trio, gigged like crazy, and honed his songwriting and figured out what his voice was.

The result was Jones evolved into a singer-songwriter with a folk vibe, Laurel Canyon sensibility and neo-soul influence. That sound is crystallized on the Nate Jones Band’s recently released self-titled EP, which spans the aforementioned musical spectrums. There’s the soft “What Goes Up” and dark “Wandering Love.” Jones said the latter is one of his favorites.

“The instrumentation is sort of bigger and darker than what I’ve done in the past,” Jones said. “There are electric guitars and a lot of tracks. There’s actually a flamenco guitar solo, and I use a distorted slide guitar for the outro.”

As for his unique sound, Jones admits folk and neo-soul may seem incongruent, but he stresses audiences will hear how it works when the band plays an 8 p.m. Friday show at Kent Stage, 175 E. Main St., Kent, with headliners the Womack Family Band.

“I don’t know if the two genres worked together in the past, but I feel like it does work together now,” Jones said. “I’m a big fan of the Laurel Canyon sound, but I compare myself more to like Paul Simon than to Jackson Browne or the Eagles. The way I write songs is more folk-based. The soulfulness stuff comes from New Orleans. The rhythms and vocal inflections just kind of get soaked up, and it just kind of blended really well.”