• Artists have ownership
• Fans have a voice.

Very Juicy began as a recording studio in 1997. The new company was funded by sales of its 1998 release, Lara Lavi’s Inside the Red Room. These sales also secured means of national distribution, developed and reaffirmed enormously beneficial music industry connections and goodwill, and branded the label as a successful regional independent. Since 1998, the label has developed 18 additional artist projects in hip hop-R’n’B, progressive and pop rock, world, jazz, Americana, and children’s music.

Over the coming months, with the help of its current roster of artists and input from you, Very Juicy will sign new artists, both established and emerging; develop new features on our web site; and provide you with on and offline ways to check out new music, both live and recorded. Imagine logging on and being in the studio with one of our artists, or onstage during a sound check! Be in it with us. This is your community, your world. This is all part of the Very Juicy revolution

I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Both my parents were in the arts and academic fields, which is where I got my love of music and words. I began playing piano at three, violin at seven, and performed with a number of symphony orchestras. While attending the University of Chicago, I took a job as a waitress at the legendary Chicago blues room, the Kingston Mines. Musicians like Buddy Guy and Jimmy Johnson took me under their wing and pushed me up on that stage, telling me to go for it. That's how I went from being a shy back-up vocalist to fronting the band. I loved it.

To the relief of my parents, I left the Mines in 1980 and returned to school, studying wildlife biology at the University of Michigan and then law at the University of Oregon. But I never gave up my music. While living in Eugene, Oregon, I collaborated with an old family friend, Charles Neville of the Neville Brothers. That's how we started the band Flambeaux which toured the West Coast during my law school days.

By 1989, I had moved to Seattle, passed the state bar, and began work as a lead attorney for the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe on everything from treaty rights protection to negotiating a management agreement for construction of a 23,000-seat Amphitheater on the reservation.

In 1990 I recorded my first album, The Art of Living. And a year later, along with Charles Neville, Arlie Neskahi, Navajo, and my current co-collaborator, Maurice Jones Jr., I helped found SongCatchers. SongCatchers is a merger of rock, soul, jazz, and Native American music and led to the release of the critically heralded album, Dreaming in Color. We even toured extensively with Peter Gabriel and WOMAD.

As an advocate for Native Americans, I've never had a romantic view about their current situation, but I have come to know that they are part of a living culture. With their permission and participation, I experimented with their music, but I never pretended to be one of them. I have my own musical history, my own musical future.

Now, ten years later, here I am on the Internet, with a brand-new future for my voice and my music. Hope you like what you hear!

Maurice Jones Jr. has a lifetime of professional experience as a music producer, filmmaker, recording engineer, musician, educator, performer, graphic designer and entrepreneur. As an educator Maurice has enjoyed years of experience developing multi-media education and arts programs for youth, including inner-city at-risk youth. Maurice is the co-founder, President and Chief Creative Officer (CCO) of Very Juicy Records. In short, Maurice leads the group in picking our artists and developing their musical talent.

As CCO of Very Juicy Records, Maurice oversees and directs all aspects of the company, from recording, marketing and distribution, to publicity and financing. Maurice is an expert in songwriting, voice development, computer programming, musical instrument digital interface (MIDI), digital sampling, multi-track recording, audio wave sampling and audio engineering. He has extensive experience in video production including script writing, storyboard creation, set design, lighting, camera operation, digital effects, and video editing. Maurice works hands-on with all of the Very Juicy artists to develop their performance style and stage presentation. Maurice also interfaces with both the local and national music scene on behalf of Very Juicy Records.

While Maurice’s history is diverse, it is full of involvement in the music industry. Maurice has played in bands as a guitarist and also as an accomplished bassist since grade school. He comes from a family of talented musicians, which includes his two brothers who are also professional musicians. Maurice is the co-founder of the popular music group Edison-Jones, which sold thousands of records from the mid 1980s through 1990. Maurice then focused on working with at-risk inner-city youth as the director of the Central Area Youth Association Multi-Media and Performing Arts Program. Several of the young people from that program are involved in the hip hop and R’n’B division of Very Juicy Records today. Maurice and Lara Lavi founded the SongCatchers along with Arlie Neskahi, Navajo, Mark Cardenas, and Charles Neville. Maurice has produced songs for the first and the second SongCatchers CD and toured extensively with the group. He developed the Catching Songs Workshop program for young people along with the other founders.

Now entering his second full year as CCO, Maurice is focused on Very Juicy Records.