Music
Press
On Songwriting
“…the voice and style of Woody Guthrie and the observational humor skills of Will Rogers.”
CityBeat “Best of 2006 issue”
“ a vital presence on the local Folk/American scene whose albums and songs often deal with social issues of local and international interest.
Mike Breen, CityBeat
…“His finely crafted songs are in the best Woody Guthrie tradition – they tell great stories, with a bit of lyrical edge coming thru the folksy delivery.”
Rick Bird, Cincinnati Post:
------------
On Performances
“All the audience participation demonstrated that the crowd clearly had fun joking around with the band.”
MaryKate Moran, UC News Record: 2006
“Watching Jake Speed live is like being transported back in time to when Huckleberry Finn Rules the Mississippi River and Photos were printed in earthy sepia tones.”
Katherine Sontag, Univ of Cincinnati News Record:
“…beforehand, Speed explained the story (of the song) with finger puppets.” MaryKate Moran, UC News Record: 2006
“During “Volvo Girl” a song about the unreliable car Speed’s wife drives, the band led the crowd in a ‘YMCA” style dance spelling out “V-O-L-V-O” MaryKate Moran, UC News Record: 2006
“Speed’s rich, nasal, folksy delivery has the storytelling power of Woody Guthrie and the slyness of son Arlo.”
Rick Bird, Cincinnati Post
- Various - see citations
Discography
World Come Clean - The new album - same political & cultural insight - more complex sound
Huzzah! - A fun album with interesting cultural commentary
Queen City Rag - The Original Freddies Album
The Cincinnati Legends of Jeremiah Schmidt - timeless original river songs
Losantaville - a Christmas album - both thoughtful & humorous
All albums except Legends, are with Jake Speed & the Freddies.
Photos
Bio
Jake Speed's shows are a mix of social satire and playful fun. In between sets of satirical and traditional folk songs, Speed works the crowd, throwing in a joke or two and making up songs on the spot. "As a musician, you're an entertainer first." he says smiling.
Jakes clever satirical pieces about both the local and national scene have made him an audience favorite. Speed, a fervent disciple in the Woody Guthrie troubadour tradition, couches his social satire in happy-go-lucky, old-timey music. Like Guthrie, Speed's feel-good delivery is in contrast to the often-tough images and satire he presents. "My whole spin is to get my point across with humor," Speed said. "I always try to make it some preposterous situation. It just seems like folk music is the tradition these kind of songs have come out of."
Speed flashes some of his best social satire on the "Talkin F-Word blues," (listen under 'audio') his own Alice's Restaurant-inspired opus about going into a redneck bar at the height of the Iraqi invasion and ordering French vanilla coffee, French dressing, French fries, French bread, French toast and playing "Lady Marmalade" on the juke box. Mimicking Arlo's littering bust, Speed is arrested on suspicion of being a terrorist.
Speed has plenty of wistful non-satirical tunes, such as "Marvelous You," as happy and pretty a love ditty. His delightful "Volvo Girl" is a tribute to the durable car that his wife drives in which he breaks out in song spelling V-O-L-V-O. "I have this dream of it being my own YMCA theme song,"
Jake Speed won Cincinnati Entertainer of the Year Award in 2002. He also won the Best Cincinnati Singer-Songwriter Award. His group Jake Speed and the Freddies have won the award as the best folk/Americana band in four of the last 8 years including 2008.
In 2006, he made a New Years Resolution to write and publish a song a week about current events. These Songitorials (song+editorial) covered topics from the War in Iraq, rising gasoline prices and racist barbers to daylight savings time and back-to-school purchases. They ranged from hilarious to biting.
reference: Rick Byrd interviews in Cincinnati Post
Links
