Jon Holt

Jon Holt brings his many years of experience in live performance, as a Singer/Songwriter and Band Leader, to the MACT Board of Directors, but he also brings his creativity and his day-job skills as a project manager to energize MACT Member communications and to energize continuous improvement to the MACT Membership experience.

Performance experience started at a young age for Jon, playing ukulele for his classmates in elementary school. In his teens, he played Turner and Silverman's open mic night at Rusty's Burgers in Corpus Christi. Which was his first outlet to share his original songs. He joined the Army in 1987 and 10 years later won the Army Hawaii Battle of the Bands while stationed in Hawaii. He put together a band for the contest by posting audition notices to the barber shop bulletin board on the Army post. This was before social media. And they played Jon's original music for the winning set. After Hawaii, Jon moved his family to Colorado Springs, CO. In Colorado, Jon played a few open mics, and was first introduced to Texas Music Cafe on PBS. Jon's currently band project, The Soundwaves performed on Texas Music Cafe in late 2020.  A year after moving to Colorado, Jon moved back to Texas to be a contractor on Fort Hood.

On January 1st, 2000, Jon stopped at a bookstore/coffee shop in Downtown Killeen, and asked the owner if she had live music. She did not, but she loved live music and wanted to get something going. So Jon went home to get his equipment that afternoon and played there every evening for 3 weeks, and then a couple times a week from there for over a year. Jon had friends from work that played guitar and would have them come out and join him. That's about the time a bar opened up in Harker Heights called Cutter's Texas Music Cafe and Wild West Cantina. Cutter was the former Road Manager for Stevie Ray Vaughan, so it was also like an SRV museum. The first thing you saw when you walked in the door was a glass case full of motel keys from touring. The place was full of pictures and other SRV paraphernalia. When Cutter wrote a book about his times with SRV and about his club in Harker Heights, Jon and other local musicians were mentioned in the book. Jon was one of a handful of musicians that recorded a song for an audio CD that came with the first 1500 copies of Cutter's book. So Jon rarely missed a Cutter's open mic night and commenced to meeting most all the musicians in the area at the time. Jon also ventured down to Austin and joined the Austin Songwriters Group (ASG). While with ASG, Jon performed at places like Saxon Pub and Threadgill's World HQ. Jon has since shared the stage with many of the musicians he met at Cutter's. And recorded with a lot of them. Jon had several special guests on his Eaglefeather album in 2008 and also later wrote a morning show jingle for Hammer and Friends on 107.3 The FOX, which was recorded with several local rock musicians. Jon has held several solo and duo residencies, and frequently invites fellow musicians to join him. Jon has hosted and/or established many weekly open mic nights in the Central Texas area. Jon likes to encourage fellow songwriters and performing musicians. He believes if you hold the spotlight for your fellow performer, the good ones will hold it for you in return. To build each other up. But as Jon has discovered through his many travels to shows and open mic nights all around Texas, some musicians prefer not hold the spotlight. Some would rather mess with the soundboard and tweak the high ends to cause feedback during your set. There's not many of those, but they're out there. So beware and don't care. MACT is an organization of musicians that will hold the spotlight. Jon said he felt the support of the Music Association of Central Texas family when he became a member in 2019 and started going to MACT events in Waco. About the same time Jon started putting his current band project together. Jon has since been drawn to the vibrant Waco community of musicians, and he is obviously drawn to the MACT mission of holding the spotlight for its members.

So Jon's wife of 30 years, Carolyn, helped him put his current band together by producing his bass player (eldest son, Matt) and his keyboard player (youngest son, Scott). Jon and The Soundwaves look forward to supporting live MACT events and meeting more Central Texas musicians.