Jonas Friddle and The Majority

Jonas Friddle and The Majority is an American orchestral folk band based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Their sound has been described as "at once huge and intimate, in the way only old-timey, bluegrassy folk music can be." Their instrumentation includes a string section, horns, organ, banjo and drums.

Contents

• Discography
• Songs
• References

The band originally formed in late 2011 to early 2012, when Jonas Friddle recruited colleagues at the Old Town School of Folk Music to play on two albums of his original songs, Synco Pony and Belle De Louisville. Now as a band they perform traditional songs as well as banjo-driven original songs by Friddle. The band members are:

The band is notable for having won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest award for Song of the Year for 2012 with the song "Belle De Louisville." Friddle says he composed the song on the banjo which helps give it its rolling feel, appropriate for a song about a steamboat.

The band's 2013 CD, Use Your Voice was financed in part by a Kickstarter campaign. In 2014, Friddle's song "Man Was Made To Fly" from that album won the "Folk" category in the Great American Song Contest.

Jonas Friddle is originally from Black Mountain, North Carolina, and is a graduate of Berea College with degrees in English and theater; after graduating he received a fellowship to travel to several countries to study community-building through music. He is a songwriter, arranger, and banjo player; he also plays guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and several other instruments.

Before forming The Majority, Friddle and some of The Majority members had been in "The Barehand Jugband" together. The Barehand Jugband was the winner of the Minneapolis Battle of the Jug Bands in February 2011 (Waffle League). Friddle sometimes performs jug band music, blues, swing and old-time as a trio with Anna and Evan Jacobson, who were also in the Barehand Jugband. He also performs old-time and traditional tunes with Majority member Maria McCulloch as "Sleepy Lou" since at least 2010.