Jon McLaughlin on tour

American heartland singer-songwriter and pianist Jon McLaughlin, whose second Island Records album, OK NOW took over the #1 spot on the iTunes pop album chart upon its release in October 2008, has returned to the road with his first headlining dates of 2009 – including a series of high-profile gigs this week in Philadelphia (WXPN’s World Café Live radio broadcast), Boston (The Paradise), and New York City (The Blender Theatre at Gramercy). (Please see itinerary below.)

Opening all shows (which run through the first weekend of March) will be fellow Island Def Jam band Parachute VA, the first act signed to the newly relaunched Smash division of Mercury Records. Parachute VA’s new single, “She Is Love” is currently featured in the new NIVEA ad campaign- http://media.islanddefjam.com/Parachute/parachuteVAnivea1-27-09.mov.

The tour comes on the heels of McLaughlin and Parachute VA’s exclusive live performances last weekend at the Island Def Jam Music Group’s House Of Hype at the Sundance Film Festival. McLaughlin and Parachute VA appeared on “Park City TV” while in town for the festival.

OK NOW, praised by USA Today for its “indelibly catchy production,” took off on the wings of the Top 30 Hot AC hit single “Beating My Heart,” which was picking up over 1,000 Hot 100 Airplay spins every week at its peak, with an audience over 2.5 million. Billboard praised the song’s “instantaneous hit potential,” calling it “a joyous up-tempo romantic romp, featuring hook after hook, from tinkling piano to driving percussion and a start-and-stop bridge, alongside a joyous effortless vocal that soars with falsetto to the high heavens.” The video for “Beating My Heart” spent more than two months in daytime rotation at VH1, and was seen by 8 million movie-goers in October, during Screenvision’s pre-show on 4,000-plus screens across the country.

OK NOW is the follow-up to Jon’s debut, Indiana, which neatly took over the #1 spot on the Movers & Shakers chart when it was released in May 2007. At the 2008 Oscar broadcast, his performance of “So Close,” (Jon’s Academy Award-nominated song from the Disney movie Enchanted) ignited an astonishing 1,514% overnight sales increase at Amazon for his album. Later on in the year, Jon headlined a series of shows in September-October at the Hard Rock Café in five U.S. cities – Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Cleveland, and Indianapolis – as part of the Pinktober campaign. The ongoing crusade is “all about celebrating life, spreading awareness, and going pink in support of the fight against breast cancer,” as described in the organization’s vivid website, http://www.pinktober.org/.

JON McLAUGHLIN ON TOUR

With Parachute VA:
Date City Venue __
Jan. 30 Boston , MA Paradise
31 New York, NY Blender Theatre @ Gramercy

Feb. 2 Troy, NY Revolution Hall
4 Buffalo, NY Tralfamadore
13 Ann Arbor, MI Blind Pig
14 South Bend, MI Legends (Notre Dame)
16 Madison, WI Majestic Theatre
18 Des Moines, IA Vaudeville Mews
19 Kansas City, MO Bottleneck

Jon McLaughlin solo dates:
Feb. 20 Chicago, IL House of Blues
26 Universal City, CA Hard Rock Cafe (March On Stage)
27 San Diego, CA SOMA

March 1 Sacramento, CA Hard Rock Cafe (March On Stage)
4 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge
5 Seattle, WA Neumos
7 St. Paul, MN Benson Great Hall