SXSW 2005 Showcasing Artists
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Jackie Greene
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“At a mere 24 years, Sacramento’s Jackie Greene has more old-soul in him than most musicians twice his age. He’s been tagged as a bluesman, but his music reveals an effortless flair for Texas-and-Greenwich Village-style folk, hillbilly stomp, bar-band boogie woogie, or just about any roots-related genre he cares to try on for size. He’s a songwriter, plain and simple, and a superb one at that.”
James Sullivan, San Francisco Chronicle When DIG Music owner Marty DeAnda happened into a local Sacramento folk pub’s Monday hoot night in the autumn of 2001 to meet up with his friend and label-mate, the legendary singer Sal Valentino (The Beau Brummels, Stoneground), DeAnda was clearly not expecting to hear anything impressive beyond Valentino’s fabled voice. But he did. A thin young kid with a big old-soul voice, guitar chops and plenty of musical confidence stepped up to the mike and made all room conversation cease. Jackie Greene had blown into Sacramento only months earlier from a tiny old Northern California gold rush town that was, in it’s day, called Hangtown, but now is more discreetly named Placerville. Greene, a local just turned 21 then, sounded like a displaced Delta boy, picked up by Guthrie’s dustbowl winds and set down in Harte, Steinbeck and Saroyan Country. Born in Monterey, California, Greene grew up in small town Cameron Park, thirty miles east of Sacramento. Along with his mom and three younger siblings at home, Greene had a piano and an old guitar his father had left. Mostly self-taught, Greene began playing in public at age 16, then moved onto local Placerville coffeehouses nearby, just after high school graduation. The move to nearby Sacramento, armed with a self-produced CD, was the next logical step. It paid off fast. Greene is strikingly unself-conscious in the way he envisions his time-out-of-mind place. His voice is big and casually seductive in the way that Bob Dylan and Tom Waits voices are. His tone and inflections seem naturally born, from an old soul inhabiting a rail thin body. Like his heroes, Dylan Muddy Waters, Johnny Cash and Waits, his source material embraces folk, blues and country; the end result is both cutting edge and timeless. Greene’s compactness of phrase with feeling is impressive. He can turn a beautiful line, he can lay down a lowdown lick and leave you wanting some more. He’s a smart young man who is an accomplished musician on acoustic and electric guitar, harmonica, piano and Hammond B-3 organ. Jackie Greene has moved from hoot nights to coffeehouses to blues clubs to festival stages in a short amount of time since the November, 2002 release of GONE WANDERIN’ (DIG 106). The album won the California Music Award for the “Best Blues/Roots Album” in May 2003 and has remained on the national Americana Chart for over a year. Since 2003, he has toured nationally with Susan Tedeschi, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Los Lobos, Jonny Lang and Taj Majal. In virtually every venue, Green has set support act house records for CD sales off the bandstand. He hs played high profile festival dates across the country including, the Newport Folk Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival, Doheny Music Festival, Winnipeg Folk Festival, the Strawberry Music Festival, the Rhythm & Roots Festival, and the San Francisco Blues Festival. In August of 2004, Jackie Greene released his most recent CD, SWEET SOMEWHERE BOUND (DIG 112) that continues to gather radio play and positive critical comments. Solo or with his driving rhythm section of Ben Lefever on drums, Jeremy Plog on bass and Nick Swimley on guitar Greene has lifted audiences to their feet, with encores and standing ovations following nearly every performance. Greene offers up a sound and vision that is gathering an extremely wide audience range, prom pre-teen girls to heritage fans who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. Recently signed to Universal's Verve/Forecast, Jackie is planning on re-entering the studio in April of 2005 to begin work on his first new Verve/Forecast release. |
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