A native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Jonathan grew up singing in the Southern Baptist church, where his father preached and his mother played piano.

After four years in the Navy, he returned to Chapel Hill to play in rock bands in that legendary underground music scene.

A friend of Jonathan's invited him to an old-time fiddle festival in the mountains of southwest Virginia, where his writing began to change.

Assimilating the sounds of southern traditional music, Byrd wrote new songs in an ancient style. One of those first songs was "Velma," a murder ballad based on the true story of Velma Barfield, the last woman to be executed in North Carolina (in 1984) and the murderer of Jonathan's own grandfather...

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