Jay Munly
Jay Munly (also credited as Munly and Munly Jay Munly) is a banjo player, guitarist, singer, and songwriter based in Denver, Colorado. He has played a significant role in the development of the "Denver Sound", music that mixes elements of country, gothic, folk and gospel. He is a member of Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Scott Kelly and The Road Home, and Denver Broncos UK as well as the leader of his own band, Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots. Prior to working with the Harlots, Munly released several solo albums recording with a vast array of musicians. Some of these performers included members of Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Devotchka, and future members of Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots. In July 2006, Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots was voted the best band in Colorado by over 100 music experts in the Denver Post Underground Music Poll.
Munly is also a published author who has received the Southern Heritage Award and the Young North American Playwright Award for his work.
Munly's music has ties to alt-country and Gothic-Americana. Common themes include religion, violence and dysfunctional relationships; often they are intertwined. His increasingly narrative songs often feature banjo and, since the recording of Jimmy Carter Syndrome, strings.
Munly is currently working on a multi-album set tentatively titled "The Kinnery Of Lupercalia", which will be about the fictional town of Lupercalia and the people who live there. The work is loosely based on the Peter and the Wolf composition by Sergei Prokofiev The first of the albums, Petr & the Wulf, was released on October 5, 2010.
Munly is now endorsed by Schecter guitars and plays a Corsair model.
Taking interest in ice hockey as a young man in Canada, Munly grew up a Montreal Canadiens fan.
Discography
- Blurry (1996 What Are Records?; 2006 Smooch Records (reissue))
- de Dar He (1997 What Are Records?; 2006 Smooch Records (reissue))
- Galvanized Yankee (1999 What Are Records?; 2006 Smooch Records (reissue))
- Jimmy Carter Syndrome (2002 Smooch Records)
- Munly & The Lee Lewis Harlots (2004 Alternative Tentacles/Smooch Records) (as Munly & The Lee Lewis Harlots)
- Petr & the Wulf (2010 Alternative Tentacles) (as Munly & The Lupercalians)