The Brilliance Of Gary Jules

With all the recent news about the return of Cat Stevens and the longstanding blog love for Jose Gonzalez, singer-songwriter Gary Jules is an artist who - if you like Cat or Jose or even early John Cale - you will immediately fall in love with.

He's a white guy with a guitar, a lot of tattoos, a poet's heart, a soulful voice and the ability to touch you with his beautiful song. Skip back about 4 years to the accidental hit song he had - the cover of Tears For Fears' "Mad World" which Gary recorded with Mike Andrews and was featured in the movie Donnie Darko. The song - also on Gary's wonderful 2002 album, Trading Snakeoil For Wolftickets resulted in his being signed a major label deal that went South due in large part to the typical cluelessness most major labels have in dealing with talented artists like Jules.

Gary, like some of his LA based colleagues including Alexi Murdoch, is a jewel of a songwriter and singer. Recently he moved out of LA with his wife and baby and has been living in North Carolina. No doubt tiring of the crazy LA scene and his need to improve his spiritual health, Gary's returned with a new self-titled album and is another sparkling diamond; acoustic, meditative, melodic, intimate, confident, stunningly crafted.

Gary, it's good to have you back.

Whiskey For Everybody - Gary Jules

There's a couple new more songs you can download on his myspace

Buy Gary's new album

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