Sometimes you see someone perform for the first time and you're just completely blown away...
Hailing from Middleton North Manchester, playing a blend of folk, blues, soul and gospel. JP Cooper is an intriguing prospect amongst aspiring British Singer Songwriters.
Listening to him perform, either alone or with his band, bears witness to an honesty, intensity and power evoked via the simplest of orchestration.
His soulfully expressive unique vocal style, the kind that cuts through a room to hush a chattering crowd in seconds, is utterly bewitching. His unexpected vocal flights hardly prepare you for the intimacy and empathy to follow, couple this with a clutch of sensational songs and you would find it almost impossible to believe that he has only been writing seriously for two years and performing solo for barely one. Comparisons are yet to be made (although they inevitably will be..), but there is nothing derivative about his voice or his songwriting.
JP has been singing with Manchester's finest gospel choir, The Manchester Sing Out Choir (nominees for the National Gospel Awards), for the last few years. An unusual training ground for an acoustic singer-songwriter you might think... but it's one that has enabled him to develop an extraordinarily soulful warmth to his vocal whilst retaining a genuine folksy feel and has informed a real leftfield approach to his song writing.
