Josiah Sherman (born March 4, 1983), known professionally as Buddy Ross, is an American record producer, keyboardist, songwriter, and audio engineer from Washington. He is best known for his work with Frank Ocean, having worked heavily on his critically-acclaimed albums Blonde, Endless, as well as his singles "Provider" and "Moon River".^[1] Ross has also written or produced material for various artists including Bon Iver, Travis Scott, Vampire Weekend, Miley Cyrus, HAIM, Arlo Parks, Fred Again, Wet, Banks, and Troye Sivan, among others.

Ross produced, mixed and played piano on Vampire Weekend's 2018 album Father of the Bride, which won a Grammy Award.^[2][3] He co-wrote "Jelmore" with Justin Vernon on Bon Iver's Grammy-nominated album i,i ^[4][5] and was co-writer and co-producer of "I Know Alone" on Haim's Grammy Award nominated album Women in Music Pt. III.^[6][7] In 2023, he produced numerous songs on Travis Scott's Utopia album.^[8]

In 2020, he released his debut commercial single as a lead artist, "Bored Again."^[9]

Career

In 2009, Ross produced and mixed his first album for Tacoma, Washington artist Daniel Blue.^[10] Together they formed the band Motopony, self-released the album, and were later signed by TinyOGRE in 2011.^[11] They toured the United States extensively from 2010 to 2012. Motopony's self-titled debut charted at #1 on KCRW and on the CMJ 200 chart in 2011.^[12] In 2012, as they were in the process of recording their second album, Ross received a call from Motopony's former tour manager requesting he fly down to Los Angeles to try out for Frank Ocean’s band the day before Ocean’s Channel Orange would be released and one week before the tour would commence.^[13] After landing the position as Ocean's keyboardist, Ross performed on the Channel Orange tour and live on SNL with Ocean and John Mayer that same year.^[14] He would ultimately leave Motopony to continue to tour with Ocean through 2017.^[15]

In 2013, Ocean brought Ross to the studio to write and play keyboards on his critically acclaimed albums Blonde and Endless.^[16][17] He sampled Ross's song "Running Around" as the recurring theme to Blonde on the songs "Be Yourself", "Good Guy", "Facebook Story", and "Interviews".^[18] In 2014, Ocean released a voice memo as his first follow up song to Channel Orange titled "Memrise" on Ocean's Tumblr. "Memrise" was co-written with and produced by Ross.^[19][20] In 2017, Ross music directed and played keyboards for the nine Frank Ocean festival headlining slots in support of Blonde.^[1] While on that tour, Ross and Ocean co-wrote and co-produced "Provider" from their hotel rooms.

Ross would later go on to write, produce, play keys and mix for artists including Vampire Weekend, HAIM, Vegyn, Carly Rae Jepsen, Troye Sivan, WET amongst others.

In 2023, Ross collaborated as a writer and producer on 5 tracks featured in Travis Scott's studio album Utopia, which debuted at No.1 on Billboard 200: "My Eyes," "Sirens," "I Know ?," "Parasail", and "Looove."^[21] All five songs made their debut on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.^[22] Ross also attained a position on Billboard's Hot 100 Songwriters, reaching a peak rank of No. 21.^[23]

As an artist, Buddy Ross has released three singles; "Running Around" in 2016 and "Green Light" and "Bored Again!" in 2020, the latter two released through Vegyn's label PLZ Make It Ruins.^[24]

Personal life

Ross was born and raised in Kelso, Washington. He studied classical piano from age 5 to 15 and began composing piano music at the age of 9 before he transitioned to electronic music in his mid teens.

Ross resides in Los Angeles.

Discography

References

External links

• Buddy Ross at AllMusic