Joe Barone, former front man and founder of the band “Incidental Bliss”, has been strumming the six string since the age of six. Born and raised in a small New England town, Joe often turned to music as an escape from the bland existence life sometimes had to offer. “Music has always been a place of refuge for me. When the world is dark, I close my eyes and create music…it is then that everything comes to light.” Joe grew up in a musical family, his grandfather being an accomplished musician/songwriter along with his father and uncle who were both local musicians in the 60’s and 70’s. Joe’s older brother Tommy Miller, who is now his percussionist, was also a large influence during his youth. Tommy exposed him to the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, and Jimi Hendrix. As Joe came of age, he opened his soul, absorbing a variety of other types of music from Ben Harper to Sublime, and Blind Melon to The Black Crowes. In 1997 Joe Barone moved to Boston, MA where he attended Northeastern University and continued to study music and music business. In a new and stimulating environment, Joe discovered that creating music was even more satisfying than just playing it. A talent that was undiscovered until this point, his craft for the written word immediately came to the forefront of his songs. “Living in Boston exposed me to an entirely new world and perspective. It evoked the idea that anything was possible in this lifetime and it was then that I felt there was something in my music that had to be shared.” Thanks to a new perspective on his music, he opened himself up and began playing acoustically at local bars and college parties. After two years, he had compiled an impressive catalog of self-written songs and it was time to lay them down in the studio. He solicited the help of some other fellow music majors and his brother to record his first solo project titled, “Ocean Drive”. Unbeknownst to them, they discovered a vibe that would ultimately lead them to creating the roots rock band, Incidental Bliss. Barone best describes Incidental Bliss as “an awakening of the soul, stimulated by the collective fusion of passion, emotion, and spirituality as it finds its way into our lives…sometimes very unexpectedly.” In the winter of 2003 Joe Barone and the band relocated to New York City to further pursue their musical endeavors. Incidental Bliss had since crafted a diverse style all its own, amalgamating the rich sounds of rock, blues and funk into one musical entity. In 2005 they recorded and released another CD, a 7 song EP titled “The View Inside My Mind”. Most Recently, Joe Barone has returned to his solo career as a singer/songwriter. He has been working hard on new material and is performing acoustic shows in the Hartford, New York and Boston areas. The current project that has released is called Breakdown” and it is exactly that. It brings out everything that is bliss but broken down into its purest form. Joe Barone is roots rock at its finest embracing a variety of genres ranging from folk to rock to blues to country to reggae and everything in between. Bliss is something that we should all experience in this lifetime and Joe Barone’s music is one way to access this longed-for state of well-being.