Jordan White (musician)
Encyclopedia
Jordan White is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 rock musician and singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 from Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

.

Early life and education

Born in Cranford, New Jersey
Cranford, New Jersey
Cranford is a township in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2010 Census, the township population was 22,625.Cranford was incorporated as a township by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 14, 1871, from portions of the Townships of Clark, Linden,...

, White was raised in Nazareth, Pennsylvania
Nazareth, Pennsylvania
Nazareth is a borough in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The population was 6,023 at the 2000 census.Nazareth is located seven miles northwest of Easton, four miles north of Bethlehem and twelve miles northeast of Allentown...

, part of the Lehigh Valley
Lehigh Valley
The Lehigh Valley, known officially by the United States Census Bureau as the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metropolitan area and referred to locally as The Valley and A-B-E, is a metropolitan region consisting of Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, and Carbon counties in eastern Pennsylvania and...

 region of the state, where he learned to play guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 and classical piano. He graduated in 1998 from Nazareth Area High School
Nazareth Area High School
Nazareth High School is a public high school located in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is the only high school in the Nazareth Area School District and serves grades 9 through 12. Its mascot is the Blue Eagle and school colors are blue and white. Student enrollment for the...

 and went on to graduate from Northampton Community College
Northampton Community College
Northampton Community College is a community college in Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania, USA, just outside the city of Bethlehem. The college, founded in 1967, also has a second campus in Pocono Township in neighboring Monroe County...

 and then received a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 from East Stroudsburg University in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
East Stroudsburg is the most populous municipality in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in the Poconos region of the state. Originally known as "Dansbury", East Stroudsburg was renamed for geographic reasons when the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad opened a...

; and a M.S.
Master of Science
A Master of Science is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in the sciences including the social sciences.-Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay:...

 from Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania
Shippensburg, Pennsylvania
Shippensburg is a borough in Cumberland and Franklin counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Settled in 1730, Shippensburg lies in the Cumberland Valley, 41 miles west-southwest of Harrisburg, and is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 1900, 3,228 people...

, in the field of psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

. White credits several professors at Northampton Community College as having a profound effect on his motivation for continuing his education and for encouraging his song writing.

White explained that depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...

 he experienced as a teenager was the motivation behind writing his own music, revealing that music "saved me from being another statistic."

Music and influences

White began playing keyboards in a class project led by his teacher in elementary school and was later inspired by his father's vinyl record collection. White says his musical influences "started with singer-songwriters out of the 1970s," referencing Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

, Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....

 and Billy Joel
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...

. He also cites Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...

, Counting Crows
Counting Crows
Counting Crows is an American rock band originating from Berkeley, California. Formed in 1991, the group gained popularity following the release of its debut album in 1993, August and Everything After, which featured the hit single "Mr. Jones"...

,
Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...

, The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

, Ritchie Valens
Ritchie Valens
Ritchie Valens was a Mexican-American singer, songwriter and guitarist....

 and The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...

. His music is considered a mixture of alternative
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

, acoustic
Acoustic music
Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...

-confessional pop-rock.

White spends much of the songwriting process fine-tuning lyrics and is known to occasionally alter verses in the middle of performing. Much of the lyrical material deals with personal relationships, the divorce of his parents, and "how people just stop talking and the second things gets difficult they'll walk away." He adds, “I really like lyrics that are personal but sometimes they become broader to apply to others; although there’s a fine line between doing that and making it obvious." White reportedly has gone a year or more between writing songs due to his commitment to the lyrics.

In a June 2011 article, White told The Philadelphia Daily News, "The songs are inspired from the life that I lead and the lives that I see. They are often about wounded people. People who are flawed and the flaws I find in myself; being caught in the grey area between what you want and what you can’t have. That’s not to say I can’t write about positive things, there’s an enormous element of faith and hope in what I write. I see both the beauty and heartache in people. Sometimes it's like saying, well, I really made a mess of things this time, but I can’t wait to see what happens. I’m extremely inspired and moved by the environment I’m in."

Career

White's first break into the music industry occurred in 2005 when a demo
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...

 he recorded was included on a compilation in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 on Bamboo Bird Records.

White has performed as a solo artist and with several acts, popular east-coast cover band
Cover band
A cover band , is a band that plays mostly or exclusively cover songs. New or unknown bands often find the cover band format marketable for smaller gigs, and these bands may be known as a wedding band, party band and function band. A band whose covers consist mainly of songs that were chart hits is...

 The Fuzzy Bunny Slippers, the acoustic trio Foreplay and alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band, KineticBlu, which performs both original and cover songs.

KineticBlu formed in Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the 215th largest city in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and is currently...

 in 2008 although inactive until the acoustic act Foreplay, in which White, guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

 Brian Kibler and vocalist Tara Crowe, had been performing with merged with drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...

 Rob Lilly. White was performing a solo show in the Lehigh Valley
Lehigh Valley
The Lehigh Valley, known officially by the United States Census Bureau as the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metropolitan area and referred to locally as The Valley and A-B-E, is a metropolitan region consisting of Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, and Carbon counties in eastern Pennsylvania and...

 when he was approached by Lilly about a new band he was forming. The media had even once dubbed KineticBlu "The Lehigh Valley's Sexiest Rock Band".

White has shared the stage and opened for national acts such as Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind is an American alternative rock band formed in the early 1990s in San Francisco. The songwriting duo of Kevin Cadogan and Stephan Jenkins signed the band's first major label recording contract with Elektra records in 1996 resulting in two multi platinum albums. The band's lineup...

, Vertical Horizon
Vertical Horizon
Vertical Horizon is an American alternative rock band formed at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in 1991. The band is best known for a string of hits in 1999 and early 2000s, including "You're a God", "Everything You Want", and "Best I Ever Had ". Their most recent album, Burning the...

, Bowling For Soup
Bowling for Soup
Bowling for Soup is an American pop-punk band which originally formed in Wichita Falls, Texas in 1994...

, Sharon Little
Sharon Little
Sharon Little is an American singer-songwriter from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Biography:While working as a waitress in Philadelphia, Little performed with local bands and independently released an album in 2006 titled Drawing Circles before being signed to CBS Records in early 2008...

, Ryan Star
Ryan Star
Ryan Star is an American singer-songwriter and musician from Long Island, New York. He was also a reality television contestant on the CBS show Rock Star: Supernova.-Biography:...

, and Katherine McPhee  and White advanced through the early rounds of American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...

 during season 5 but has since publicly criticized the selection techniques used by producers of the show. After being dismissed, White was offered and signed a management contract with Media Five Entertainment
Media Five Entertainment
Media Five Entertainment is a United States artist management and booking agency assisting the careers of musicians in the music industry. In addition to regional headliners, the agency has worked with some of the biggest names in music.-History:...

.

White performed for a sold-out audience on December 31, 2008 for Musikfest
Musikfest
Musikfest is a music festival that has been held each August in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA since 1984. The festival begins on the first Friday in August and ends on Sunday ten days later....

's "First Night in Bethlehem" annual New Year's Eve concert in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...

.
In February 2010, White's original song "September" recorded with KineticBlu, was selected by Sony Music/Red Distribution
RED Distribution
RED - An Artist Development Company is a Sony Music Entertainment-owned sales and marketing division that handles releases for over sixty independent record labels....

 for inclusion on a national release of hot new musical acts and is available on Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

, iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

, Rhapsody
Rhapsody (online music service)
Rhapsody is an online music store subscription service, launched in December 2001, and available in the United States only. On April 6, 2010, Rhapsody officially declared its independence from RealNetworks. Downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, Rhapsody's version...

, and Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...

. The song put the Pennsylvania-based band into the spotlight, and with over 1.5 million hits on Myspace
Myspace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....

 it had clearly struck a chord. Says White: “I wrote the song about September because that’s when summer comes to an end, and even though chances are we’ll get to see another, it's possible we won’t.”

In April 2010, White performed his original song "Crazy Girl" live on WFMZ-TV
WFMZ-TV
WFMZ-TV, virtual channel 69 , is a general interest independent television station in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which is part of the Philadelphia DMA. Its studio and transmitter are located on South Mountain in Allentown.-Background:...

 Channel-69 News.

White has performed at the Tunes at Twilight Festival in Bethlehem, PA  and campaign fundraisers for U.S. Congressional Candidate Jake Towne for Pennsylvania's 15th District. During the campaign White criticized incumbent Charlie Dent
Charlie Dent
Charles "Charlie" Dent is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2005. He is a member of the Republican Party.The district includes all of Northampton County, most of Lehigh County, and small parts of Berks and Montgomery Counties....

 for attempting to bar Towne from scheduled debates due to a controversial band that was scheduled to perform as well.

KineticBlu was named Alternative Addiction's "Next Big Thing" for October 2010 and performed at the fifth annual Bethlehem Harvest and third annual Blue Mountain
Blue Mountain (Pennsylvania)
Blue Mountain is a ridge that forms the eastern edge of the Appalachian mountain range in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It cuts across the eastern half of the state from New Jersey to Maryland, providing a distinct boundary between a number of Pennsylvania's geographical and cultural regions...

 "Rock The Fall" Festivals, events which drew several thousand people.
In February 2011, White performed at the 15th annual Millennium Music Conference
Millennium Music Conference
The Millennium Music Conference is an annual event that features 3 days of panels, clinics, workshops, mentoring, demo listening sessions, and a music business trade show, held in and around the city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The event celebrates new music and emerging talent with 3 nights of...

 & Showcase in Harrisburg, PA, an event which draws nearly 300 musical acts from across the country.

In May 2011, White performed at the Paul Robeson Arts Center in Princeton, NJ which was televised on Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...

 and Verizon FIOS
Verizon FiOS
Verizon FiOS is a bundled Internet access, telephone, and television service which operates over a fiber-optic communications network. It is offered in some areas of the United States by Verizon Communications. Verizon was one of the first major U.S...

 and performed in August at Musikfest
Musikfest
Musikfest is a music festival that has been held each August in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA since 1984. The festival begins on the first Friday in August and ends on Sunday ten days later....

 2011 held annually in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania which draws nearly 1 million people from across the country.

White recently spoke about hearing loss in performing musicians, saying initially he did not use ear protection
Earplug
An earplug is a device that is meant to be inserted in the ear canal to protect the wearer's ears from loud noises or the intrusion of water, foreign bodies, dust or excessive wind.-Protection from water:...

 but added "it's something to think about more as I get older and want to protect my senses. After shows, I'll have this ringing in my ear where it sounds like there's a television on."

As of September 2011, White has been recording a three song EP to include new songs “Bloodshot;” “Maybe Amy,” and “Before I Go Out” and will be performing with Grammy-Award winner Richard Smallwood
Richard Smallwood
Richard Smallwood is an American Gospel music artist who formed The Richard Smallwood Singers in 1977 in Washington, DC.-Biography:...

 in December 2011.

Charitable performances

White is known to frequently perform at fund raising events, notably in January 2010 to benefit the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake
2010 Haiti earthquake
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks...

 with Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean is a Haitian musician, record producer, and politician. At age nine, Jean moved to the United States with his family and has spent much of his life in the country...

 for The American Red Cross and in June 2010 at the "Songs For The Spill" concert in Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the 215th largest city in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and is currently...

 to assist the clean up from the Deep Horizon BP oil disaster.

In early 2012, White will be performing with both American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...

 runner-ups Crystal Bowersox
Crystal Bowersox
Crystal Lynn Bowersox is an American singer-songwriter and actress, who was the runner-up on the ninth season of American Idol...

 and Elliot Yamin at Stabler Arena
Stabler Arena
Stabler Arena is Lehigh University's 6,000-seat multi-purpose arena in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, located on its Goodman Campus in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, in the United States...

 to benefit juvenile diabetes, a disease which both Bowersox and Yamin suffer from, although the date has yet to be announced.

Awards

In November 2007 White was a finalist in the Lehigh Valley Acoustic Competition and in 2008 KineticBlu was nominated for two Lehigh Valley Music Awards. In August 2010, White himself was nominated for three 2010 Lehigh Valley Music Awards for Best Songwriter, Best Lyricist, and Best Band Website, being chosen amongst 3,000 other fan and industry nominees. White performed at the awards ceremony on December 5, 2010 in Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the 215th largest city in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and is currently...

  which was well received.

White was nominated for two Mongtomery/Bucks County music awards and performed at the ceremony in November 2011; and for the third time was also nominated for two more Lehigh Valley Music Awards, one for Best Songwriter and one for Best Male Vocalist. The awards ceremony will be held on December 4th, 2011 at the new ArtQuest Center in Bethlehem, PA.

Personal life

"The people who are making a living playing music, the reason they got to that level is because they see music as a lifestyle," White told The Northeast Times
Northeast Times
The Northeast Times is an American newspaper, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that primarily targets the Northeast Philadelphia community. After being owned by The Philadelphia Inquirer parent company, it was sold to a newly formed company, Broad Street Media.-External links:* *...

, adding, "[This] requires talent, dedication and endurance"
also telling the Sun-Gazette
Williamsport Sun Gazette
The Williamsport Sun-Gazette newspaper's history.The newspaper now known as the Williamsport Sun-Gazette was founded in 1801 as The Lycoming Gazette. This nation was only 25 years old at the time and there were only 131 residents in Williamsport. The newspaper was started in a building in what is...

 that "there are a lot of setbacks and accomplishments. Often you take two steps forward and one step back. It's just how it goes."

White claims he has developed a mild form of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) over the years, noting his tendency "to perform certain actions in sequences of even numbers" and says he is "obsessed with the number 4".
White graduated Nazareth Area High School with actress/musician Kate Micucci
Kate Micucci
Kate Micucci born March 31, 1980) is an American actress, comedian and singer-songwriter, whose first major television exposure was as Stephanie Gooch in Scrubs, and later as Shelly in Raising Hope...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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