Jefferson Berry and his Urban Acoustic Coalition have been purveyors of urban folk music for over a decade now. The Philadelphia based group recently released its fourth album in five years. Born Into A Blizzard continues its practice of exploring modern day city life through song. The album is a mixture of sounds from shades of The Grateful Dead and Steely Dan to elements of samba, rock, and pop music.
The album is a delight for those who like songs that tell a good story. “Yeah, I’m a storyteller,” Jefferson proclaims. “I’ve surrounded myself with a real core group of phenomenal musicians, some really great players. And I am a really good musician but my role in this thing is telling stories. And that is really what urban acoustic music is about: telling stories about city-living in these strange times.”
These strange times include the circumstances of his birth told in “Born On Payday.” It also contains the line that became the title of the album. He was “born into a blizzard… on a Friday night way upstate.”
“Born into a blizzard is my father’s version of the day I was born,” Jefferson told me. “It was upstate New York and it was a blizzard. And it was a payday – Friday the 15th. Everybody got paid on Friday. Everybody got paid on the 15th and the 30th. Everybody got paid on January 15th.”
Jefferson is from Southern California and a graduate of Santa Monica High School where his father is from. He moved there at a very early age with his family. But it was in Schenectady, NY where he was born into a blizzard on January 15th payday. His father was working for General Electric at the time.
“He got a job at GE coming out of Stanford University and they transferred him to Schenectady to replace the public relations writer,” Jefferson said. “His boss says, ‘Look. You got to be better than that last guy because he took his writing way, way, way too seriously.’ We’re just talking about a little PR writing here.”
So Jefferson’s father goes to his office and opens up the top drawer of the desk of the man he was replacing. There he finds a manuscript for Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Born Into A Blizzard has a number of memorable tracks. “Leaving Santa Maria,” for example, was inspired by a scene Jefferson saw while eating at an outdoor restaurant near a park.
“There is this girl sitting on the park bench and she has this suitcase next to her,” he recalls. “And I came up with this narrative of someone leaving and pondering their future.”
“Sleeping In Public” takes a much-neglected look at those who are looked down upon because they are homeless. The perception the homeless are addicts and ne’er-do-wells overlooks the reality that many are veterans and once successful humans who fell upon hard times and did not know how to navigate an increasingly complicated world.
Jefferson considers “This Dawn Of Mine” to be the folksiest song on the album. “It’s about how I start my day chopping vegetables,” he says. It is a simple tune with a sparse arrangement and a sweet mandolin lead and instrumental break. It is also a tale of the sights and sounds greeting him as he starts the day – chopping vegetables.
“Guitar On The River” is a light and airy tune about playing guitar down on the river. There are many references to the tunes he plays there and the people he observes.
The samba-infused “Thirty Miles To The Beach” is a story about isolation. Someone lives 30 miles from the beach in east LA but has never been there. It is much like New York City dwellers that have never been to the Statue of Liberty. It has its origin in an incident where he met someone who has never been to the beach. “So I took her to the beach,” Jefferson says.
The core of phenomenal musicians who make up the Urban Acoustic Coalition on Born Into A Blizzard include long time collaborators Bud Burroughs on mandolin and keyboards, Uncle Mike Damora on bass, and Dave Brown on banjo, lap steel, guitars and fretless bass. Other contributors are Adam Stranburg and Kendrick Freeman drums, Ryann Lynch violin, Theresa Ratliff and Meaghan Kyle harmony vocals, Rubén Valtierra keyboards, Cliff Hugo bass, Scott Bricklin guitar, Matthew Gordon dobro, and Jay Davidson on sax.
Jefferson praises each and every one for their talent and contributions to his music. And it doesn’t matter whether they have played together for a long time or only once.
“The idea of the Urban Acoustic Coalition is a coalition of musicians,” he told me. “You’re in the band when you say you are in the band. You are in the band when you can clear a date. And when you have cleared that date I will send you a set list of songs we can all play together.”
It is a formula that has worked well so far so why mess with success.
Born Into A Blizzard was released on February 25, 2025, and is available on CD and streaming.