The Sessions : CJ Vinson

CJ Vinson

CJ Vinson is a Singer/Songwriter, Music Producer, and Video Director from Princeton, NJ. His obsessions for music began with a local NJ band called Dear Liza. CJ and his friends would sneak into bars and record the band on handheld cassette players and trade the tapes with kids in their Jr. High School. This love for live music turned into an obsession in 1996 when CJ received a cassette tape recording from his next door neighbor’s older brother who was attending college in Virginia. The recording was of a group called the Dave Matthews Band playing at a college party. CJ began going online and trading live recordings of Dave Matthews with people up and down the east coast. After several years, CJ became one of the biggest cassette tape bootleggers in NJ with over 300 Dave Matthews shows, 200 Phish shows, and countless Grateful Dead, Ben Harper, Rusted Root, Blues Traveler, and God Street Wine tapes. CJ would kill the time copying tapes in his room by strumming on an old Fender guitar his older brother gave to him. After a little while CJ was able to play a few songs, and after a little more time he began writing his own music. By the time CJ went to college, he was playing out several times a month.
After attending SMU in Dallas TX, CJ worked on for a Wall Street firm for several years. CJ would often bring his guitar to work and hide it in a broom closet. After work, he would change in the bathroom and make it out to the Village to play in basement songwriter sessions and open mics. Divided by a love for music and a good job, CJ finally quit the banking world after two and a half years. CJ moved to a small rundown walkup in the Lower East Side where he continued to write/ record music. He was a regular at The Living Room, The Bitter End, The National Underground, and Rockwood Music Hall. After recording 2 EPs and being named the New York Heat Seeker’s People’s Choice “Best New Underground Rock Band in New York” in 2008, CJ packed up his bags and moved to Austin, TX where he received a bachelors in the Recording Arts from Media Tech Institute and met the co-founder of The Sessions Lauren Bucherie. “Now it’s time to change the world.”