Jon Brion is one of America's most talented singer/songwriters and a multi-instrumentalist, including drums.



Jon Brion was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. He came from a musical family: his mother was a jazz singer, his father a band director at Yale, and his brother and sister became a composer/arranger and violinist, respectively. Brion had difficulties in high school and at the age of 17 left education for good, opting instead to play music professionally.



Although Jon Brion does not have much in the way of solo recordings available, he has been working hard since he was a young man. He was a member of The Grays, whose album Ro Sham Bo was a masterpiece of power pop (along with Jason Falkner, Buddy Judge, and Dan McCarroll, excellent performers and songwriters in their own right).



Jon Brion was responsible for much of the sound of Aimee Mann's two solo albums, played guitars on Jellyfish's album "Spilt Milk", and contributed much to the sound of Fiona Apple's debut album "Tidal".



Jon has also worked with such artists as Murray Attaway, Jude Cole, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, David Byrne, Brian Stevens, Sam Phillips, E (and the Eels), Susanna Hoffs, The Mommyheads, Garrison Starr, and Sean Lennon among others.



In April 2006, recurring tendonitis in Brion's right hand forced him to cancel all of his upcoming Largo shows. As a temporary 'farewell', he played his most recent show only using his left hand, even looping his songs as he normally does and playing the drums with one stick.



Recalling his approach to the Largo shows with Chicago Tribune music editor Lou Carlozo, Brion said:

"I taught my hands to follow whatever was coming into my head-—and wherever my consciousness would go, I had to push my hands to follow. And at some level, you just had to abandon any concern about how you’d look. Performing without a set list: That was special."