Wayne G. Harvey

was born in Jacksonville, Florida. The son of a naval officer, he moved all over the country from Florida to Illinois, spending most of his formative years in Virginia, and finally settling in the Philadelphia area as an adult. His love for music is lifelong. He began singing at an early age, singing along with songs on the radio on hot summer nights and recording the latest top radio hits with friends. A versatile vocalist even at that young age, his mother urged him to go into musical theater; but Wayne enjoyed the creativity of rock and country music: It spoke to his adventurous personality, his independent side. Eventually, upon entering college and getting his heart broken by his first true love, he began putting his own feelings down on paper, matching it with his primary instrument, his voice about which a friend once said, “[it] is reminiscent of a long, slow walk down a backcountry road...”

His personal music choices began to gel when he discovered The Eagles, Jimmy Buffett, America, Loggins & Messina, Sting, Don Henley, Elton John, Prince, John Hiatt, and David Baerwald. To this day, his songs tend to rotate from folk, country, rock and blues; and each song is a snapshot of his own personality and are taken from specific events in his life. While in college, he began to collaborate with a childhood friend, the two writing songs together and gaining a reputation as the 80s Simon & Garfunkel, because of their acoustic approach to songwriting and their melodic harmonies. It was this friend who encouraged him upon graduation to move to Philadelphia which led to Wayne’s first experience in performing his own material. He played an open stage at an old club called the Up Above, a small venue on the second floor of the now-defunct club Bacchanal in Center City Philadelphia.

He played for years, opening for other struggling singer/songwriting acts at various clubs and open stages throughout the city, performing as a solo act and as part of several groups from the Hopeless Romantics to Local Anesthetic, The Black-eyed Peas, and Breakfast In Bed. A multi-instrumentalist, Wayne’s first instrument was clarinet, followed by tuba; then upon deciding to become a singer/songwriter, he began to learn guitar and piano. Once the music-writing bug bit him, he started branching out, setting himself up with a home studio which spurred him to learn to play bass, drums, harmonica, recorder, and keyboards. Now along with working on his own projects, Wayne has formed the Linden Lane Studio, hoping to help struggling acts make their own professional recordings for use in obtaining work and record contracts.

Along with this, Wayne has spent the last several years performing and recording with Jerry Burruss, a seventy-year-old blind country-blues guitarist. Jerry spent fifty years of his life alone, learning country music by copying what he heard on the radio. It has been Wayne’s privilege to help introduce a rare talent like Jerry’s to the world, playing rhythm behind Jerry and using his vocal talents to augment his unorthodox style. From playing outdoor festivals to bars to closed parties, Wayne’s involvement with helping Jerry find his musical voice has been a testament to his commitment to artist development, and watching Jerry pull himself from obscurity to notoriety has been heartwarming and inspiring.

In the meantime, Wayne keeps busy dividing his time between his day gig and being part of two wonderful projects – Square Wheels and Tom Mullian and Friends. Wayne joins Dr. Mac Given in Square Wheels, a truly eccentric but outrageously fun band whose material blows away convention, steering between folk, country, jazz, and anything else they can throw into the mix. Wayne plays guitars and sings while Mac supplies woodwind accompaniment, jamming on clarinet, sax, and harmonica. Music with Tom is a varied bag of classic rock, folk, and peace material. Tom and Wayne met while backing Jerry Burruss and found that they shared an amazing synergy that has moved them forward to this day. Wayne adds harmony vocals and varied instrumentation to Tom’s moving and provocative eclectic array of music. Joining them on this journey is Alex Uskuraitis, world-renowned singer/songwriter best known for his famous keyboard and accordion work. Both of these bands play regularly around Media.