Joel R. Zoss (born February 19, 1944, Easton, Pennsylvania) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter and award-winning prose author.
Based in Spain, for the next several years he lived in European capitals and points around the Mediterranean while focusing on prose fiction.
Zoss' professional life has always balanced between prose and music, sometimes weighted heavily to one or the other, as during the 1980s into the 1990s, when he authored or co-authored over twenty five non-fiction books.
[2] A versatile musician known for mixing metaphysical themes with strong melodies, Zoss gained a worldwide cult following after Bonnie Raitt began recording his songs in the early 1970s.
American dream songs called in long-distance from an area code as yet unspecified.—Rolling Stone He has an uncanny knack for conjuring up gorgeous images that tap the most complex of human emotions.
King, Etta James, James Taylor, David Bromberg, John Hall and Orleans, John Hartford, Juan-Carlos Formell, Paul Butterfield, Bonnie Raitt, David Sanborn, Vassar Clements, Lowell George and Little Feat, Taj Mahal, Norman Blake, Todd Rundgren, Kate Taylor, Howling Wolf, Ferron, June Millington and The Master Musicians of Jajouka.
[5] In addition, he has toured extensively throughout the U.S., performing both as a solo artist and also with the Joel Zoss Trio at such venues as The Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Max's Kansas City, The Main Point, The Beacon Theatre, The Bottom Line, The Living Room, Club Helsinki, The Cutting Room, The Cellar Door, Passim, Caffe Lena, The Ashgrove, The Bitter End, Folk City, Johnny D's, The Paradise, The Bushnell, The Hooker-Dunham Theatre, The Iron Horse Music Hall, The Keswick Theater, and the Northampton Academy of Music.
Drummer Billy Klock is a graduate of the Hartford Conservatory of Music who has kept time and recorded with many major players, most recently touring nationally with Greg Piccolo and Heavy Juice, formerly of Roomful of Blues.
The other eleven tracks were: "Oh, Jerusalem;" "Pushing the River;" "Mother Wanted You Home;" "Cantina Bodega;" "Till I Met You;" "Pretty Flowers;" "Touchstone;" "In My Dreams;" "The Token;" "Junkers Blues;" and "‘Tis of Thee."