P.O. Box 632 Findlay, Ohio 45839 Phone: 419-420-9327

Findlay Live
JD OWEN
By Brandon Jett
Apr 1, 2008, 22:26

Well-known Ohio musician JD Owen has been playing at Put-in-Bay for thirteen years. We're also lucky to have him playing regularly plays at Nino’s and Coffee Amici in Findlay well. Around here though, he is best known for his role in the Ford commercials.

Jd's been involved with the Children’s Wishing Star for two years, and that began a relationship with Findlay Ford owner Stan Kujawa. Stan had asked JD to write a jingle for the commercial, which JD at the time believed was going to be aired on the radio, not TV, and was shocked to learn that it was actually a TV commercial.

How exactly did JD get involved with music in the first place though? He says that, “God blessed me with a voice; I’ve got two and a half octaves which is a lot more than most people have.” Owen got his first guitar when he was just five years old, and started to take learning it seriously by the time he was ten. He joined his first serious band in 1977, and then joined another band while in the Marine Corps.

After leaving the Marine Corps, he played with several other bands around the country, but became disenfranchised with their lack of professionalism and decided to become a solo artist. Owen worked at several different places around Findlay and Fostoria, but once Put-In-Bay invited him to play there several days a week, he decided to become a full-time musician.

JD believes that the reason he has been able to stay at Put-In-Bay for as long as he has is because he is constantly learning new songs and has at least twenty new ones to perform every year. His philosophy is that “life is a classroom, and anything you do in life, the more you practice it, the more you learn it, the more you do it, the more you grow.” He helps to perpetuate this philosophy by teaching guitar every Monday.
Sometimes the kids he is teaching will tell him about their experiences playing Guitar Hero; however he says “work on it [learning how to play guitar] hard enough and you can actually play what they play on Guitar Hero. You don’t need Guitar Hero, you’re the guitar hero.” Owens says that the only way for any aspiring musician to improve is to “Practice, practice, practice and get out there as much as you can.”

Even though he normally plays several shows a week, JD himself still practices at least four hours every week. He believes that crowed experience is an invaluable thing to have because it teaches musicians how to read the crowed. He is able to read a crowed within two songs which helps him to know which of the two thousand songs in his repertoire to play. He believes that places like Nino’s and Coffee Amici are great assets in Findlay because they give many musicians who are just starting out a venue.

JD's advice to aspiring musicians is that they need to learn how to make music, not just play it. “When you’re doing a song, you need to believe in the words of the song. If you’re just playing the song with no feeling in it, no heart in it, that’s playing music.” He has been able to make people cry with his songs and says that, “if you can touch somebody’s soul with your music, you’re making music, not just playing it…If you don’t have the feeling and expression in there, you might as well just turn on the radio.” JD sums up the importance of having fun while playing music....“I don’t have fans, I have people I party with…I have friends.”

Visit JD Owen here http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=83767797

http://www.myspace.com/findlaylive