About RJ
Born in Chicago and now living in the Tennessee woods, RJ has toured throughout the U.S. and Canada, including official appearances at SXSW and Canadian Music Week among other festivals. Deftly straddling traditional and contemporary Americana and Blues, he’s garnered fans from biker bars to Bourbon Street, from farm towns to music festivals, and from coffee houses to concert halls.
As a recording artist, RJ’s earned critical acclaim and radio success. Radio stations throughout the U.S. and Europe spun his 2018 LP One Last Kiss, including the BBC in U.K. and the legendary WSM Opryland Radio in Nashville. Produced by Shawn Byrne and featuring Parker Millsap’s fiddle player Daniel Foulks and Grammy-winning slide guitarist Randy Kohrs (Jim Lauderdale band), RJ widens his emotional range on One Last Kiss, revealing a joyful tenderness that contrasts invitingly with his signature darkness. One Last Kiss was praised on both sides of the Atlantic. No Depression’s Ron Wray said RJ has “a great raw country voice.” Alan Magpie proclaimed “[RJ Comer] should be a Major Star in the Americana world if there is any justice.”
RJ’s 2016 EP Nightly Suicide was also spun on the country’s Americana stations, and Tampa’s WMNF 88.5 named it one of the best albums of 2016. In 2015 RJ released a two-sided single New Orleans Undercover, which debuted at #2 on iTunes New Blues Releases Chart. New Orleans Undercover was recorded in New Orleans with New Orleans musicians and features 2012 National Banjo Hall of Fame inductee Lee Floyd. RJ’s debut solo EP Hell Hole Swamp (March 2015) includes tracks produced in Lafayette, Louisiana by True Blood and Treme’ contributor C.C. Adcock and features the legendary Stanton Moore on drums. RJ’s song Smothered from the Hell Hole Swamp EP is the title track and theme song to the feature film “Smothered” (written and directed by John Schneider).
In addition to touring and recording, RJ also writes music for films. For a summary of his film music credits click HERE.
RJ took a sabbatical in 2019 to have reparative hand surgery and to rebound both physically and artistically. In 2020 RJ performed live for the first time in two years at the Key Largo Original Music Festival. He released the single “Man of Naught but Death” and his song “I Wasn’t Born an Angel” appeared as the opening credits theme song in the feature film “Abigail Haunting“. RJ also revived his old band Dance Hall Pimps as a studio project and released the Halloween single “Wait ’till Your Demon Gets Home.” For the foreseeable future, RJ’s primary artistic focus will be writing and recording, but he will make some selective live appearances.