Jay Dancing Bear started playing electric guitar in 1976, while a DJ at WPLT, Radio Free Plattsburgh, his New York college radio station. Later moving to San Francisco, he busked street corners and played in various alternative bands like the Divers, the Electrics, Railerific Blues Band, Rampage, Riot, the Chairs, Red Kryptonite, the Rattlers, and the Free and Sleazy Band.
After touring Europe in the early '90s, playing bars, restaurants, and farmer's markets, he shifted his music toward solo acoustic folk and blues. As of 2009, he's written over 600 songs and instrumentals and can be found performing at every given opportunity. "My role model," he says, "is the classical guitarist Andres Segovia, who died at 93 and played his last concert two weeks before."