Josh Blake
Josh Blake is a Grammy nominated musician, producer, and engineer with over 30 years of experience. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Josh now calls Asheville, North Carolina his home since setting roots there in 1997. As a musician and producer, Josh uses whatever toys are available, but on stage a guitar is his instrument of choice. He has recorded with and performed in a wide variety of bands over the past 30 years, whose styles include hip-hop, funk, reggae, bluegrass, acoustic and rock.
In late 90’s and early aughts Josh toured the country from coast coast playing 120+ shows a year with live hip-hop collective GFE. As a guitarist he has become a hired gun, playing with numerous projects both on the stage and in the studio when not playing with his passion project JBOT. Josh is also the guitar player in the house band for Asheville’s most notable and longest running weekly, The Tuesday Night Funk Jam. Having earned the respect of the city of Asheville for his musical efforts, He was selected by the city’s Downtown Association to organize and orchestrate an “Asheville All Stars” band for it’s annual summer concert series Downtown After Five. As a performer, Josh has has played clubs, theaters and festivals coast to coast, sharing the stage and playing with artists such as George Clinton and The P-Funk All Stars, Warren Haynes, STS9, Kevin Kinney, Marcus King, Lettuce, George Porter Jr., and Mike Gordon to name a few. His discography includes contributions from many notable musicians, such as Sharon Jones, Marcus King, Eric Krasno, Billy Cardine, and Grammy winner Secret Agent 23 Skidoo to name a few. Early on in his musical career, Josh displayed a natural passion for the recording arts. At a young age, he set up a home studio, and spent much of his time and energy recording GFE and other artists. What started with a passion for music, a four track, and one microphone developed over time into a profession. Since 2006, Josh has spent many of his days working out of Echo Mountain Recording Studios in Asheville, NC. Some accolades include a Grammy nomination, Music Video Asheville “Best Soundtrack” winner, and Mountain Xpress “Best Local engineer/producer “ for 2019 and 2020. Josh was called upon to be the lead recording engineer for a recent performance with Warren Haynes and The Asheville Symphony, working closely with the legendary producer Don Was to capture audio at the event. He is now sought out regularly for freelance engineering and production work out of Echo Mountain. A full list of albums he’s worked on, Echo Sessions guests, and credits can be found at his website www.joshblakemusic.com. When not recording his own music, Josh often creates beats or songs for vocalists, as well as creating music for commercial use. In addition to performing, producing, and recording music, Josh is currently working to expand his business, Independent Arts and Music of Asheville. Based out of Echo Mountain Studios, IamAVL is a community web based channel focused on music and video production and live concert streaming, with an emphasis on promoting the vibrant music and arts community in Asheville as well as it’s musicians. Through that project, he has produced and engineered the iamavl original in studio concert series Echo Sessions. The show is also syndicated for rebroadcast on PBS. Through iamavl Josh has also produced video production for may large events, for clients like Widespread Panic, NPR, and The Warren Haynes Christmas Jam. As the company’s CEO Josh is not only a music industry visionary, but also continues to refine his craft as a recording and production specialist in this cutting edge platform for independent artists, and the community that supports them.
Impact from Helene: I have lost several gigs!
The ask: Please consider hiring me or one of my projects to play your event or venue. If you are a musician, I would also love to be considered as your producer, recording, or mix engineer. Thank you!
Direct donations: Venmo @joshblakemusic