Ori Naftaly

Ori Naftaly (born 1987) is a Israeli-born guitarist, composer and music producer. After a career with his namesake Ori Naftaly Band in Israel, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee and started the band Southern Avenue.

Biography
Naftaly grew up in the small Israeli town of Even Yehuda, located east of Netanya. At the age of 5, Ori began taking music lessons and learning to play guitar. From then, until graduating from Hadassim High Music Class at the age of 17, he studied guitar with different teachers from a wide range of music genres (Spanish, Classical, Jazz and Funk). Upon graduation, Naftaly immediately applied and was accepted to Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, for Arrangement and Composition studies. After two years at Rimon (while also studying Classical Guitar with Israeli musician Shlomo Yidov), he started playing and recording with musicians all over Israel, while pursuing a day job as a Microsoft systems engineer.

Ori Naftaly Band
In 2011, Naftaly gathered together his favorite Israeli blues musicians and entered the studio to record his debut album, which effectively formed the Ori Naftaly Band. Since then, the band has won awards and acclaim around the world. Ori Naftaly's self-released debut album, A True Friend (Is Hard to Find), was picked as the Best Blues Album in 2012 by Jan Marius Franzen from bluesmagazine.nl and syndicated radio show "Purple Haze." In the German magazine Wasser Prawda the album was picked #2 as Best Blues Debut, and it was named Best Debut in Israel on 88FM by Tomer Molvidzon.

On October 2012 he won the Israeli Blues Society competition, and the Ori Naftaly Band was chosen as the Best Israeli Blues Band of 2013 earning them an invitation to the 29th International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN. At the IBC, the Ori Naftaly Band made it to the Semi Finals, making history by both selling the largest amount of CDs in the competition and for being the first Israeli group to ever reach the Semi Finals in this prestigious global event. Their second album, Happy For Good, was released in May 2013 (again, by Naftaly himself) and featured eight new original songs; Naftaly produced the album and composed most of the music. Only a month after its release, Happy For Good reached number 2 on the International Blues Radio Charts, and stayed in the Top 5 for an impressive eight straight weeks. On the strength of the album, and Naftaly's growing reputation in the blues community, the band toured the US and Europe, with Naftaly taking time between tours to relocate from Tel Aviv to Memphis to take his career to the next level.

Move to the United States
Upon moving to the States in October, 2013, Naftaly enlisted a new core of Memphis musicians, and since then played over 200 shows in over 40 states, including headlining appearances at some of the most well-regarded blues festivals in the country and sharing the stage with some of the most well-known acts in the Blues world.

Southern Avenue
Although his talents were embraced by American audiences, Naftaly felt constrained in his own band, feeling the need to include a more expansive, collaborative musical vision. That opportunity arrived when he met Memphis native Tierinii Jackson, who'd gotten her start singing in church, before performing in a series of cover bands and theatrical projects.

Ori and Tierinii clicked immediately. Tierinii’s sister, drummer and vocalist joined the pair in September 2015 and Southern Avenue was officially born. With Jeremy Powell on keys and Daniel McKee on bass, the band entered the International Blues Challenge in the winter of 2016 representing Memphis. Southern Avenue shocked the community by making the finals and were the buzz band of the event.

In the summer of 2016, Ori and his Southern Avenue band mates signed with the venerable Stax Records, part of the Concord Music Group. They recorded their debut album with noted producer Kevin Houston (North Mississippi Allstars, Lucero) and it was released in February 2017. The album charted at #1 on the iTunes Blues charts, reached #6 on the Billboard Blues chart and was in the Top 40 in Americana Radio for three months.