Jake La Botz
Chicago musician Jake La Botz creates life-like character portraits and movie-like stories in his songs. La Botz’s music is sometimes sad and contemplative, funny at other times – but it’s always soulful and spiritual. Just like with spiritually motivated songwriters before him – like Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and George Harrison, to name a few – he manages to connect his songwriting skills very well with his spirituality.
As a child he was already fascinated by music and he pre-emptively left school to discover the world. While travelling he learned to play the guitar. When he returned to Chicago, he started off playing on the streets as a busker. Because of his raw, weathered voice and his immense story-telling talent, La Botz is already an incredible blues artist. In the pre-Covid era he gave lessons in meditation in prisons, Buddhist centers, living rooms and elsewhere, always looking to meet new people and share the opportunities that meditation can bring them. This is also how La Botz ended up playing shows in tattoo shops, churches, subways, street corners and of course live stages – everywhere people are willing to come together to enjoy a shared musical experience.
