Bio

Larry Block’s musical roots can be traced to Long Island and a parental influence of Big Band, Swing, and Roots Rock.

No Block family gathering was complete without talented son Larry on the piano and guitar, knocking out pre-British invasion rock standards for mom and pop and aunts and uncles, but those performances were soon to be a thing of the past. Larry had his sights set on Manhattan where the urgency of a burgeoning music scene was just beginning to explode.

Larry landed in New York City in 1978, where disco was battling it out with punk in clubs and bars across the city. Not loyal to any genre, he also found himself taking in performances by country and country/folk greats like Merle Haggard and Emmylou Harris, who could be found at the few honky tonk dives known to exist in the New York of the mid-70s. He gathered up his cues from the panache of gay disco, the disgruntlement of east village punk, and the lonesome blue feeling of country and honky tonk, and began songwriting in a style that spoke of a very real and heartfelt connection to each of these sensibilities.

When he began performing in New York City, the tide was beginning to turn as the 80s swept in and washed away any semblance of authenticity in the music scene. Only a few places could be found which still offered a blend of the elements which had once made New York City relevant to the music industry.

One such place, Spodee-Odee, opened on 14th Street, near the West Side Highway and its edginess was surpassed only by its amazing roster of surprise and celebrity guests. Larry became a regular fixture on Spodee’s stage, the hottest music ticket in town, and on any given evening, you could find him elbow to elbow with the likes of Carole King or Robert Plant, and even the occasional visit by Bruce Willis, who was testing his talent next to the real McCoy’s who, along with Larry, were finding immense satisfaction in this soon to be short lived paradise among the once great ruins of a music scene.

With the passing of Spodee-Odee and the imminent plunge into the superficiality of the 80s, Larry was packing it up and heading out again, this time for San Francisco. He ensconced himself firmly in the art world, where he was becoming energized by the creativity of visual artists who, like the musical prodigies of New York’s once explosive musical scene, were causing quite a scene of their own. While he became well known with art and artists alike, he longed for the spotlight, however small or dim, that he had come to know and love in the dives of New York as a performer of music.

He soon met Bonnie Hayes in a songwriting class and began to weave together the pieces that had once informed his work in the New York City of the 70s and 80s and he, along with audiences who began seeing him at small club dates in and around San Francisco, began to discover that these ideas were as fresh and relevant today as they were then.

Bonnie placed him together in the recording studio with some of the West Coast’s best musicians and they soon had the tracks for his first studio album in place. “Losing Town” was released in December and Larry is now booked in clubs across San Francisco. Some are dives, and some are quite a bit more polished, but once the lights drop down low and you hear that energetic strum on the guitar, it could be some New York East Village coffee house of the mid 70s. But it isn’t. It’s San Francisco, it’s now, and it’s Larry Block, back on the music scene.

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