With his artistic career taking off, medical school will have to wait for aspiring doctor

By April Corbin

Friday, Aug. 21, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Jeremy Cornwell was supposed to be a doctor, not a musician.

His childhood in Ohio didn’t include a lot of music. He was a senior in high school before he took up singing and a freshman in college before he picked up a guitar or attended a concert.

So what possessed the pre-med student to abandon his triple major (biology, chemistry and psychology), drop out of Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, and move to Las Vegas with two friends he’d met at a karaoke bar?

“I was hard core. I was going to be a doctor,” he says. “Then one day it just snapped. I do want to be a doctor. Medicine and science is a passion, but the passion I have for music is just a stronger fire.”

Although he’d never been farther west than Minneapolis, Cornwell packed a duffel bag and moved to Vegas — in the middle of July.

“Coming from Ohio, it was 85 degrees with 60 percent humidity,” he says. “I step off the plane and it’s 110 with zero humidity. I choked on the air.”

The weather wasn’t the only dramatic change Cornwell felt.

“I went from not playing very often to ‘I’m in Vegas and the only thing I have is my guitar,’ ” he says. “My second week in town I made a conscious decision that I wasn’t going to work. I was only going to make music.”

He went to six or seven open mic nights a week and soon landed a steady gig playing cover songs at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. His soulful spin on songs such as Dave Matthews’ “Crush” and Radiohead’s “Creep” registered with promoters and audiences.

“When you’re making $150 to $200 for a four- or five-hour show, and you’re doing this three nights a week … that’s more money than I’d ever seen,” he says of his initial success.

Over five years, he played more often at better-paying gigs. His earnings crept into six figures, Cornwell says, and he hired friends to be his personal assistants.

Cornwell, 27, grew up poor and appreciated the ability to provide for his family. But he realized he was getting complacent. Two attempts to create albums of original songs fell by the wayside.

He decided to step back.

“I’ve never been more focused on where I really want to go than now,” he says of his decision to focus on original music.

He and keyboardist Michael Quarentello — who make up the Jeremy Cornwell Project — have finished recording the tracks for their first, self-released CD, “Blue Bonnet and the Louisiana Mockingbird.”

The tracks are similar to the duo’s live performances — a stripped-down sound with vocals, guitar and keyboard. Cornwell describes it as a mix of Hootie and the Blowfish, Stevie Wonder and the Fray, with a little Jason Mraz thrown in.

Then he quickly adds, “It’s not as crazy as it sounds when I explain it.”