Jake Xerxes Fussell - The River St. John - Live at McCabe's

Jake Xerxes Fussell Live at McCabe's 10-20-2017.
audio & video by Wayne Griffith.
----------- Biography -----------
Durham, North Carolina singer and guitarist Jake Xerxes Fussell’s self-titled debut record, produced by and featuring William Tyler, transmutes ten arcane folk and blues tunes into vibey cosmic laments and crooked riverine rambles. Jake Xerxes (yes, that’s his real middle name, after Georgia potter D.X. Gordy) grew up in Columbus, Georgia, son of Fred C. Fussell, a folklorist, curator, and photographer who hails from across the river in Phenix City, Alabama (once known as “The Wickedest City in America” for its rampant vice, corruption, and crime.) Fred’s fieldwork took him, often with young Jake in tow, across the Southeast documenting traditional vernacular culture, which included recording blues and old-time musicians with fellow folklorists and recordists George Mitchell and Art Rosenbaum (which led Jake to music, and to some of the songs herein) and collaborating with American Indian artists (which led Jake eventually to his graduate research on Choctaw fiddlers.)
As a teenager Jake began playing and studying with elder musicians in the Chattahoochee Valley, apprenticing with Piedmont blues legend Precious Bryant (“Georgia Buck”), with whom he toured and recorded, and riding wild with Alabama bluesman, black rodeo rider, rye whiskey distiller, and master dowser George Daniel (“Rabbit on a Log”). He joined a Phenix City country band who were students of Jimmie Tarlton of Darby and Tarlton; he accompanied Etta Baker in North Carolina; he moved to Berkeley, where he hung with genius documentary filmmaker Les Blank and learned from Haight folkies like Will Scarlett (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, Brownie McGhee) and cult fingerstyle guitarist Steve Mann (“Push Boat”); he appeared on A Prairie Home Companion. He did a whole lot of listening, gradually honing his prodigious guitar skills, singing, and repertoire. In 2005 he moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where he enrolled in the Southern Studies department at Ole Miss, recorded and toured with Rev. John Wilkins, and, last year, met up with acclaimed artist William Tyler to begin recording his first solo album.
Collaborating with Tyler and engineer Mark Nevers in Nashville was a conscious decision to depart cloistered trad scenes and sonics for broader, more oblique horizons. Tyler, a guitar virtuoso known for his own compositions that untether and reframe traditional six-string forms and techniques, helmed the push boat in inimitable fashion, enlisting crack(ed) Nashville session vets Chris Scruggs (lap steel, bass, mandolin: Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Marty Stuart), Brian Kotzur (drums: Silver Jews), and Hoot Hester (fiddle Bill Monroe, Ray Charles) to crew.
Jake isn’t just a rare bird, he’s the professor you always wished you had, the friend you never get tired of epic hangs with, the human jukebox, the guitar player and singer who makes any band that he’s in better. He’s a southern scholar and gentleman in the tradition of Jim Dickinson, George Mitchell, and Les Blank. He’s a Dave Van Ronk for SEC country.
William Tyler

[@williamtheanderson]

Best part of 2020 was discovering Jake and his music. This dude got me through some hard days.

[@tomglenn485]

appreciate your work mr Jake Fussell

[@joselente9497]

Fits perfectly on the waters of the San Juan river 🎣

[@doubleotwentyone]

I absolutely love that assured guitar style he has. He's the best 'discovery' I've made in a good while.

[@charlesbuckley9269]

One of my all time favourite artists... For sure

[@mhartain5848]

Thousands have come before him with the same style, genre and repertoire . . . and yet he makes it his own and its unique. Love it.

[@rebeccaridgill1764]

SO GOOD!

[@rikkiportner8482]

Saw him open for Wilco at the Beacon Theater in NYC. Totally blew me away.

[@hospice8896]

Saw him open for Magnetic Fields last night. He sucked the air out of the room. He is a master of drama and restraint. Had to pick my jaw of the floor

[@fixer687]

He can build me a "snow fence" anytime.

[@Mr.Feckless]

Such an unadulterated banger.

[@leovermeiren]

💚👍😉😎🎸

[@thetomfair]

Who wrote this song originally please? Or is it a traditional arr. or an original of Jake's? Either way, it's beautiful...

[@mtrhny]

www.paradiseofbachelors.com/pob-042/ “The River St. Johns” comes straight from one of Stetson Kennedy’s Florida WPA recordings of a gentleman named Harden Stuckey doing his interpretation of a fishmonger’s cry, which he recalls from a childhood memory. www.loc.gov/item/flwpa000023/

[@ffussell]

Here's the source for that song, from a Florida WPA recording: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jH2vc6xrlMSXabc

[@bryontreece]

Fred C Fussell wow...that is fantastic! Thanks for sharing this.

[@thetomfair]

Thank you mtrhny and Fred C. Fussell...Mr Fussell, please can you tell your son that his presence is requested in the UK as soon as possible?

[@rockandrolleracdc]

Tom Fair hes here in May mate 👍