Jeff Black
Website:
http://www.jeffblack.com/
Discography:
2005 - Tin Lily
2003 - B-Sides and Confessions, Volume 1
2003 - Honey and Salt
1998 - Birmingham Road
| Jeff Black's songs start in a personal place, often hidden back in the darkness, yet they always strive to illuminate. He's a burly, bare-knuckled, blue-collar son of the Missouri plains with dark Irish blood who digs into tough topics with a gentle heart. There's nothing predictable about a Jeff Black lyric other than it will be sung robustly and it will head towards hope instead of dwell on despair.
Black's fourth album, Tin Lily, is as hard to pin down as his previous work, where he has collaborated with everyone from rock experimentalists Wilco to Americana favorite Iris Dement to progressive bluegrass stalwart Sam Bush. As usual, Black found an inspired collection of musicians to collaborate with him on the self produced Tin Lily.
Mandolinist Sam Bush, who's last album was named after his cover of Black's song "King of the World," joins former Johnny Cash bassist Dave Roe, former Steve Earle drummer Craig Wright and guitarists Will Kimbrough, who's currently working with Rodney Crowell and Jimmy Buffett, and Kenny Vaughan, who performs with the likes of Kim Richey and Lucinda Williams among so many others. Engineered and mixed by Billy Sherrill, the song cycle on Tin Lily exemplifies the duality that make Jeff Black such a compelling, vital and important performing songwriter.
"Black is an artist of substance," wrote Billboard in a review that compared his piano ballads to Randy Newman and his rockers to Bruce Springsteen. Paste magazine adds, "The search for spiritual sustenance and lasting meaning underpins Black's reverent, battling-the-darkness-andwinning songs."Image Of Band He concedes that, while he doesn't want to offer in-depth explanations of what his songs mean, "I love songs about freeing the spirit, about minimizing the struggle the best you can, about treating your individuality as something that's precious and important," he says. "Those are the topics I come back to because those are the ideas I keep examining within myself." But Black is too complicated to make it easy. His songs take unexpected turns, cursing and snarling at points, showing their lust and their desire as well as their determination to remain bound for glory.
Black's compositions ring out with the unadorned truth of the moment they were conceived. His desire to dig deeper, to cut to the marrow is another hallmark of Black's writing. He knows the world is painted in more subtle shades than black and white, so he writes songs with a painter's eye for nuance and detail. His songs delve into complex emotional territory with a simplicity that often belies the craft that goes into their making.
As anyone who's seen his moving, funny, and unpredictable concerts already knows, He never plays the same show twice, pulling from his commercial catalog Birmingham Road Arista 1998 Honey And Salt Blue Rose 2003, B-Sides And Confessions Volume One Dualtone 2003," and the new music on Tin Lily, he responds to the moment.
| Previous Performances:
Upcoming Performances:
|
