biography
Jan Luby is known for her engaging, often riveting stage presence as well as a voice full of passion, range and power. Jan's songs are evocative, lyrical and infectious personal stories. Her approach to songwriting ranges from socially relevant to irreverent, heartbreaking to humorous.
Jan and her two siblings were born on the road to Vaudeville parents (a comedy juggler and an acrobat/dancer). Growing up back stage, living in a trailer, and traveling through 47 states before she was 7 primed her for her later entrance into the West Coast New Vaudeville scene. But first her family landed in Coney Island, New York, where as a teenager she acted and danced in the Everyman Company and Chalk Circle Players.
At the age of 20 Jan Luby escaped
New York to head West, eventually making a name for herself in
Santa Cruz, California as a solo singer/songwriter. She was one of the founders of the Santa Cruz
Street Performers Guild and their open mic. It was in Santa Cruz
that she hooked up with the likes of the Flying Karamazov Brothers,
Tom Noddy and many other Vaudeville performers and formed the
comedy musical duo Girls Who Wear Glasses with her partner, Rebo
Flordigan.
As part of the New Vaudeville circuit, Jan played clubs, fairs and festivals including: The Vancouver, Winnepeg, and Edmunton Folk Festivals, the Milwaukee Harvest Festival, the Santa Cruz Spring Fair, Oregon Country Fair, The Bear Mountain Festival of Music and Dance, Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival and The San Francisco Vaudeville Festival.
As a solo performer Jan Luby has
played restaurants, coffeehouses, clubs, festivals and streetcorners
from Sweden to Greece and from New York and Boston to the Pacific
Northwest. In her first couple years in Boston, Jan helped to
establish the open
mic at the Nameless Coffeehouse, and played all over New England,
sharing stages with Louden Wainwright III, Cheryl Wheeler, Bob
Franke, Townes Van Sandt, Garnet Rogers, Lucie Blue Tremblay,
Ani DiFranco, Dar Williams and many others.
She put out her first recording, "Push and Pull," in the Boston area in the middle of 1989 and within the year life drastically changed when the daughter she'd always wanted decided to land from outer space (or wherever babies really come from). Another recording followed in 1990,"...And Now, Direct From Coney Island, the Absolutely Tattooless Woman, Jan Luby", which was recorded live at The Old Vienna Coffeehouse.
Jan has emerged occasionally from being "Ruby's mom" within the past few years to play coffeehouses (Stone Soup Coffeehouse, Club Passim, The Colonial Inn, Roaring Brook Concert Series, The Middle East) and earn finalist honors in the Acoustic Alliance Competition in Boston, putting her song "Destination Unknown" on that CD compilation in '95.
She also took part in the "Old
Vienna Tapes-Volume #1," "Boston Women's Voice,"
and "Fast Folk Musical Magazine-Boston Revisited" compilations
in '92.
Recently she performed at the Somerville Theatre in a show to
benefit Project Hope, and her song "Ordinary" is on
the CD "Hope: Mothers Helping Mothers".
Determined to get back into the fray, Jan Luby has just released a CD titled "Tough Like a Weed." The CD's eclectic mix of musical styles reflects the the many influences of her life's adventures.