Jerry Harrison

Jerry Harrison
File:Jerry-Harrison.jpg
Background information
Birth name	Jeremiah Griffin Harrison
Born	(1949-02-21) February 21, 1949 Milwaukee, Wisconsin United States
Genres	New wave, indie pop, rock and roll, art rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, songwriter, record producer
Instruments	Vocals, keyboards, guitar
Years active	1971–present
Labels	EMI, Sire/Warner Bros. Records
Associated acts	Talking Heads The Modern Lovers

Jeremiah Griffin "Jerry" Harrison (born February 21, 1949) is an American songwriter, musician and producer. He achieved fame as the keyboardist and guitarist for the New Wave band Talking Heads and as an original member of The Modern Lovers.

Career

Born in Shorewood, Wisconsin, Harrison played with Jonathan Richman in The Modern Lovers when he was an architecture student at Harvard University. Harrison was introduced to Richman by mutual friend and journalist Danny Fields and the pair bonded over their shared love of the Velvet Underground. He joined The Modern Lovers in early 1971, playing on their debut album in 1972 (not released until 1976), and left in February 1974 when Richman wished to perform his songs more quietly.

Harrison joined Talking Heads in 1977; after the release of their debut single Love → Building on Fire.

Harrison's solo albums include The Red and the Black, Casual Gods, and Walk on Water.

After the 1991 breakup of Talking Heads, Harrison turned to producing and worked on successful albums by bands including Hockey, Violent Femmes, The BoDeans, The Von Bondies, General Public, Live, Crash Test Dummies, The Verve Pipe, Rusted Root, Stroke 9, The Bogmen, Black 47, Of A Revolution, No Doubt, Josh Joplin, The Black and White Years, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Bamboo Shoots, the String Cheese Incident and The Gracious Few. He also is Chairman of the Board for Garageband.com ("an internet music resource he co-founded in 1999").

Film work

Harrison, as a member of Talking Heads, is featured throughout the 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. Also during the Talking Heads era, Harrison made cameo appearances as Billy Idol and Prince look-alike lip-synchers in David Byrne's 1986 film True Stories. Harrison also had a small part in the 2006 film The Darwin Awards as "Guy in Bar No. 1" alongside John Doe of the band X.

Discography

Talking Heads

Main article: Talking Heads discography

Solo albums

Year	Title	US	AUS	NZ	AUT	GER	SUI
1981	The Red and the Black	-	-	-	-	-	-
1988	Casual Gods	78	18	4	17	31	10
1990	Walk on Water	188	-	-	-	-	-

Singles

Year	Title	US Modern	AUS	NZ	GER
1984	Five Minutes	-	-	-	-
1987	Rev It Up	7 Template:BillboardEncode/J/chart?f=376	3	6	45
1987	Man With A Gun	-	17	15	-
1988	Cherokee Chief	-	92	-	-
1990	Flying Under The Radar	13	98	-	-

External links

• Jerry Harrison at AllMusic