Jeff Black

There has often been talk, through the 70s of the next Bob Dylan and the mantle was given to many and in more recent years the next Townes Van Zandt. Well I have recently been listening to the best album Townes and indeed, Guy Clark, never made, namely "Foklore" by Jeff Black. It's a stripped acoustic affair with Jeff backing himself on 6 or 12 string acoustic, or banjo with a little harmonica thrown into the mix. Of the 13 beautifully formed songs, 11 are gems with only "Lemonade" a co-write with his kids, and "#10 Bus" not quite hitting the top drawer. Of the others you can listen to a writer at the top of his craft with the title cut, "No Quarter" and "Decoration Day" putting themselves forward as future classics. There is a feel, albeit somewhat rawer to the classic eponymous debut John Prine gave us. Contender for album of the year? You bet :D

For those who don't know Jeff's work, he's been around a while, penning some hits in his home base of Nashville before debuting in the late 90s with the Wilco backed "Birmingham Road". Since then we've been graced with the lower-fi more alt-country leanings of "Tin Lily" (2003), the same year that saw "B-Sides & Confessions Vol. I". He then gave us another alt-country offering with "Honey & Salt" (2005) before a long hiatus, filled with some web offerings, before the fabulous return to his more acoustic roots "Plow Through The Mystic" (2011). Last year he gave us "B-Sides & Confessions Vol. II" before this glorious offering of "Folklore".

Yes new names crop up and grab the limelight, but seasoned writers like Jeff are still around giving us wonderful music which deserves the ears of a bigger crowd. It's just a pity they don't get greater recognition for their craft. - Bob Harris Whispers

When I listen to a new CD by an artist I’ve never heard before, I tend to do a little test: How many songs into the set does it take before I hit the “skip” button? In the case of singer/songwriter Jeff Black and “B-Sides and Confessions, Volume Two,” I might as well just super glue the “skip” button – there’s no need for it here. This is a disc of 12 superlative tunes, all penned by Black, an acclaimed singer and songwriter who has worked with the likes of Waylon Jennings, the great Mandolin player Sam Bush (who appears on Volume Two), Allison Kraus and Iris DeMent. Black’s song “Frozen Fields” was a cut on last year’s Grammy award-winning “Paper Airplane” by Allison Kraus and Union Station. Black’s writing has been described as “the tradition of an artist delivering songs that are damn near perfect, crafted and filled with the wisdom of the ages “B-Sides and Confessions, Volume Two,” Black’s ninth CD, is his latest collection of moving, soul-filled songs from an insightful story teller. Before he’s a guitarist, Black is a poet who evokes images that clearly are coming from his heart, and not just his head.

As I listened to the first four or five cuts, “All Right Now,” “Molly Rose,” “Avalon,” “Impala” and “Alice Carry,” I was struck with some serial thoughts that ran along the lines of “I hear a touch of John Lee Hooker” here; this one reminds me of Lyle Lovett, or John Gorka, and this one evokes a thought of Billy Joel. About five songs in, this epiphany dissolved when the truth hit me: Black doesn’t sound a bit like Hooker or Lovett, Gorka or Joel. The fact is, they all sound a bit like him, and that’s a distinction with a difference to me.

Black is joined on “Volume Two” by a bevy of musical stars in their own right, starting with the afore- mentioned Sam Bush, the triple Grammy award winning mandolin player who has been called “the modern day Bill Monroe.” Along with Bush and resonator/lap-steel guitarist Jerry Douglas, winner of 13 Grammy awards who has appeared on an astounding 1,600 albums, singer/guitarist Matraca Berg, the youngest nominee ever to the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and Gretchen Peters who has composed hits for Martina McBride, Etta James, Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, George Strait, Anne Murray, as well as for rock singers Neil Diamond and co-writing songs with Bryan Adams. She also won the Country Music Association Song of the Year award for Martina McBride’s “Independence Day.” Along with drummer Kenny Wright and bassist Scott Evans, this band has created a remarkable collection of roots-driven and heartbreaking tunes. You can’t help but be touched by these songs. If they don’t pull your heart strings, then someone must have cut them.


Jeff Black photo courtesy of Michael Wilson.
Said to be frequently “flying below the radar,” Black has an innovative way of connecting to his fans. Called “the Blacklist,” Black’s supporters have morphed from a small cadre of faithful podcast subscribers into a dedicated family. Black created a cutting-edge file exchange website call the TAPROOM to better serve his loyal fan base. It features continuous streaming audio, and is the way Black has distinguished himself from mainstream artists.

For more information on “B-Sides and Confessions, Volume Two,” and for sound samples, visit www.JeffBlack.com. And when you buy this CD, make sure you buy two of them. The first person you play this CD for is going to want to steal yours, and it will be better to have one to give them. - Presidio Sentinel

Translation > > > The folklore, that is, in english, “the knowledge of the people” is one of the most important forms of memory: refers to the popular tradition, the rites. The customs and legends of those before us, consciously or not, has

bequeathed to future generations a legacy, a teaching, a thought. Folklore, after the critically acclaimed “Plow Through The Mystic” (2011), is also the title of the new album by Jeff Black, not surprisingly, the most rigorous album of the eleven published to date by the singer-songwriter from Kansas City, Missouri. Nudes, intense and beautiful as were also the two volumes of “B-Sides And Confessions” (especially the first, half-masterpiece), respectively from 2003 and 2013, but if they looked more like those collections of rock ballads for the occasion interpreted in suffered acoustic key, “Folklore” sounds rather like a hard uncompromising folk, scanty as it is made by weaving dozens of references to the size of the most archaic kind, sober because they can tell their own stories using only some guitar and harmonica. Join veteran newgrass Dave Sinko (someone will remember his work on behalf of Sam Bush), the album represents a journey in purity in the remotest corners and off the beaten path of the sound of roots, from country-blues of “Lemonade” the typical folk Texan (in a Guy Clark style) of the evocative “63 Mercury Meteor”, from country-rock to twelve strings of the beautiful “Break The Chain” to the painful hillbilly banjo only “Cages of My Heart” in a continual round of departures and returns from the images of the past to their contemporary tradition in a new voice, and new words. Inspired by the cover photo dated 1930 in which two brothers (his father and his uncle Lyle Black) are captured along with their dog in a bath of winter sun, the artist has tried to write some thirty pieces, thirteen of which are then selected for the lineup of “Folklore” that could vibrate in the same urgency, immediacy and frugality contained in the family stories about the Great Depression, when the choice of making music stemmed from hunger and the need for alleviate the economic hardships of family and friends through the notes of a born-dance.
The intent is clear, and perfectly successful in the episodes rougher and rootsy as a “Sing Together”, which would not be surprising to discover that belonged to some obscure storytellers of the Appalachian Mountains. Yet many chapters of “Folklore” transcend simple, commendable commemoration of days gone by in turn now classic ballads in the Black style, in the dark and fast arpeggios of “Rider Coming”, in the uncontaminated folkie sweetness of “No Quarter”, the haunting desolation of “Decoration Day”; in a set of songs, in short, where the most introverted Van Morrison and the most thoughtful Jackson Browne come together to exchange pieces of life, achievements, dreams, roads, daily rushes and small defeats.
In the gait dylaniano of the acute “Tom Domino” check even a mention of the Rolling Stones “You Can not Always Get What You Want”, but the charm of the song, the subtle elegance of fingerpicking and the effectiveness of the narrative, only belong to Jeff Black. The world in black and white, poor but proud,
tired but full of music and ideals, celebrated in “Folklore” instead belongs to us all, and for this reason it would be a shame to miss the new appointment with one of its most authentic and evocative singers. (Gianfranco Callieri-Buscadero) - Gianfranco Callieri-Buscadero

Hyperbolium - Moving set of originals from a master singer-songwriter
February 1, 2013

Nashville singer-songwriter Jeff Black complements his previous volume of B-sides and Confessions (one he presciently suffixed with "Vol. 1" back in 2003) with this second helping. It's an unexpected treat, given that his last album, Plow Through the Mystic, is just a year old. Though a couple of tracks, including the lead-off "All Right Now," end too quickly, the notion of "B Sides" is more a humble moment of self-deprecation than a fair assessment of the material's quality and readiness. The latter half of the album's title is the more apt description, as Black's country-tinged folk music is personal and touching. Whether singing in his own voice or that of characters, Black's songs are revealing in their observation point. "Alice Carry" is a widow looking back, but rather than memorializing regret at what wasn't, she displays contentment with what was. Black turns inward for "True Love Never Let Me Down," but rather than simply observing himself, he observes others critiquing his work. Black is joined by fellow singer-songwriters Matraca Berg and Gretchen Peters, and instrumentalists Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas, but as on all his previous releases, his words and voice hold down center stage with a craft so deeply in the artistic pocket that it obscures anything outside.

4-1/2 stars out of 5

©2013 Hyperbolium - Hyperbolium

Nashville-based singer/songwriter Jeff Black has some heavy friends, including mandolinist Sam Bush, guitarist Jerry Douglas and singer/songwriters Matraca Berg, Gretchen Peters and Kim Richey. And though they all lend a hand on his fifth solo album, it’s Black’s voice – both singing and writing – that gives the album its soul. Black also played most of the instruments, overdubbing himself on guitar, banjo, keyboards, bass and percussion, but the only hint of one-man-bandism is the music’s tight grip on the songs. Black’s voice takes on many different shades, at various times recalling the downtown soul of Willy DeVille, the gruff side of Springsteen, the melodic saloon growl of Tom Waits, the deadpan of James McMurtry, the rye twinkle of Randy Newman and even a few moments of Neil Diamond’s pop-soulfulness.

Black draws from country, folk, soul, blues, gospel and contemporary pop, offering songs that range from the contemplative banjo solo of “Virgil’s Blues” to the foot-tapping Little Feat-inflected title track. Jerry Douglas laces his twang throughout “Walking Home,” but the husk in Black’s voice is more Memphis than Nashville, and his lyric – an internal monologue anticipating a forthcoming explanation – isn’t your standard country fare. Black writes phrases and draws images that are easily known, but connects them into verses that recast the easy first understanding. Early in the album, his characters are caught in dilemmas that find them on the verge of apologizing, disaffected from their taught beliefs, and weighed down by riches.

But the album takes a more grounded and optimistic turn with “New Love Song” and the turmoil in Black’s head subsides with the acceptance of “Waiting.” Still, even as he embraces a less guarded life, his happiness seems to be that of a cynic who finds potential loss at the root of joy, one who counsels “you’re going to find out just how heavy happiness can be.” He closes the album with the confessional “Ravanna,” contemplating the physical and emotional distances one travels from childhood, and meditating on the relationship between human frailty and divine grace. The travel from inner turmoil, through confession, awareness and acceptance suggests the pages of a personal journal, but one whose journey is still a work in progress. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com] - Hyperbolium

BIllboard

Singer/songwriter Jeff Black offers a set here that at the very least lives up to the latter part of its title, with vivid spiritual/metaphysical imagery, passionate vocals, and big-picture themes. Black conjures a Randy Newman vibe on stark piano ballads like the inspirational "Slip" and recalls a youthful Springsteen on the biting "Bastard." The softly percolating "To Be With You" is naked in its romanticism, while the understated "Cakewalk" finds its hope and beauty in subtle nuance and life experience. A thinking-man's balladeer with farflung perspective, Black's "Same Old River" is all point of view, while "Holy Roller" is fiercely observational funk, and the stoic fatalism of "Sunday Best" and newfound optimism of "Higher Ground" are nothing short of brilliant. Top to bottom, this stuff is special. Black is an artist of substance.

—RW - Billboard

Did you ever first play an album that you knew nothing about and had no expectations of at all--and have it rare back and punch the air right out of your lungs? Take your breath away like that? This has happened to me only a few times over the years--my first taste of Billy Holiday, The Isley Brothers Shout," The Band s first album, Tom Waits C|OSing Time, Beck s Mutations, Kate Campbell s Songs From The Levee. It just happened to me again with Jeff B|ack s Tin Lily. I seldom encounter a perfect album coming out of that no expectations" left field area (and, in pop music today it is pretty tough not to have expectations from the ubiquitous promo buzz about the next big thing that blankets most of us who are paying attention, before the music actually arrives). But Tin Lily is, for me, one of those few cases, with its songs of uneasy but evocative testament to the dark depths of the heart, and how the heart can as easily shatter the fragile relationships of love as it can forge them. -George Lewis - Popular Music And Society - Popular Music And Society - George Lewis

BUSCADERO

BUSCADERO - MENSILE DI INFORMAZIONE ROCK - ITALIA
(N.366 - APRILE 2014 - ANNO XXXIV)
JEFF BLACK Folklore Lotos Nile

Translation
The folklore, that is, in english, "the knowledge of the people" is one of the most important forms of memory: refers to the popular tradition, the rites. The customs and legends of those before us, consciously or not, has bequeathed to future generations a legacy, a teaching, a thought. Folklore, after the critically acclaimed "Plow Through The Mystic" (2011), is also the title of the new album by Jeff Black, not surprisingly, the most rigorous album of the eleven published to date by the singer-songwriter from Kansas City, Missouri. Nudes, intense and beautiful as were also the two volumes of "B-Sides And Confessions" (especially the first, half-masterpiece), respectively from 2003 and 2013, but if they looked more like those collections of rock ballads for the occasion interpreted in suffered acoustic key, "Folklore" sounds rather like a hard uncompromising folk, scanty as it is made by weaving dozens of references to the size of the most archaic kind, sober because they can tell their own stories using only some guitar and harmonica. Join veteran newgrass Dave Sinko (someone will remember his work on behalf of Sam Bush), the album represents a journey in purity in the remotest corners and off the beaten path of the sound of roots, from country-blues of "Lemonade" the typical folk Texan (in a Guy Clark style) of the evocative "63 Mercury Meteor", from country-rock to twelve strings of the beautiful "Break The Chain" to the painful hillbilly banjo only "Cages of My Heart" in a continual round of departures and returns from the images of the past to their contemporary tradition in a new voice, and new words. Inspired by the cover photo dated 1930 in which two brothers (his father and his uncle Lyle Black) are captured along with their dog in a bath of winter sun, the artist has tried to write some thirty pieces, thirteen of which are then selected for the lineup of "Folklore" that could vibrate in the same urgency, immediacy and frugality contained in the family stories about the Great Depression, when the choice of making music stemmed from hunger and the need for alleviate the economic hardships of family and friends through the notes of a born-dance. The intent is clear, and perfectly successful in the episodes rougher and rootsy as a "Sing Together", which would not be surprising to discover that belonged to some obscure storytellers of the Appalachian Mountains. Yet many chapters of "Folklore" transcend simple, commendable commemoration of days gone by in turn now classic ballads in the Black style, in the dark and fast arpeggios of "Rider Coming", in the uncontaminated folkie sweetness of "No Quarter", the haunting desolation of "Decoration Day"; in a set of songs, in short, where the most introverted Van Morrison and the most thoughtful Jackson Browne come together to exchange pieces of life, achievements, dreams, roads, daily rushes and small defeats. In the gait dylaniano of the acute "Tom Domino" check even a mention of the Rolling Stones "You Can't Always Get What You Want", but the charm of the song, the subtle elegance of fingerpicking and the effectiveness of the narrative, only belong to Jeff Black. The world in black and white, poor but proud, tired but full of music and ideals, celebrated in "Folklore" instead belongs to us all, and for this reason it would be a shame to miss the new appointment with one of its most authentic and evocative singers.

-Gianfranco Callieri

Translation courtesy Claudio Cacchi - Border Affair - BUSCADERO

COUNTRY STANDARD TIME

"Folklore" is Jeff Black's most telling album to date. Not that it's filled with admission or confession, at least not in the same mode as today's sensationalistic, bare it all exposés. Rather, it's ably accompanied by a stark narrative style that's as revealing as it is reflective. The arrangements may be austere - Black performs solo, expressing his mettle on guitars, banjo and harmonica - but the rich imagery and descriptive encounters create vivid sepia-tinted hues that capture in detail another time and place, examples of awe and innocence seemingly lost forever.

In his liner notes, Black insists that these songs aren't drawn not only from his own back pages but also from the lifelines of others. "The narratives don't have near as much to do with me or the pictures I attempt to paint, as they do with the pictures people conjure up in their mind when they let them in," he writes.

And, indeed, the tale of the young boy and his sister who take a road trip with their dad in their weathered "63' Mercury Meteor," or the kids who take a day to explore the city on "#10 Bus" capture memories common to anyone who considered adolescence a time of wonder and discovery. If there is an overall sense of sadness and sobriety - the borrowed refrain that echoes the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in Black's "Tom Domino" clearly reflects that feel - but the tone has more to do with bidding farewell to fading memories rather than any hint of regret or remorse.

Still, any evidence of bittersweet sentiment quickly gives way a kind of wistful nostalgia, one that reminds us it's better to cherish the present rather than lament the past. "Folklore" speaks to the sentimental dreamer in some of us and the homesick wanderer in us all.

-Lee Zimmerman - Country Standard Time

ALBUM REVIEW

Jeff Black – Folklore

by Folk Villager
April 13, 2014

The latest tunes from Missouri bred Black - thirteen of them – are delivered solo and acoustic.
Jeff Black’s tenth album, another self-release was recorded at his rustic Arcana Studios as were recent predecessors PLOW THROUGH THE MYSTIC (2011) and B-SIDES AND CONFESSIONS, VOL. 2 (2013). Produced by Black, the sessions took just two days and the sounds captured were mixed, once again, by Dave Sinko (Chris Thile & The Punch Brothers, Sam Bush, Don Williams). Intentionally adopting a back to basics approach, Black is the sole contributing musician, employing 5 string banjo, 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars and harmonica to accompany his voice.

Black penned twelve of the FOLKLORE songs – more regarding the thirteenth later - while around a dozen-and-a-half further compositions were penned, recorded and subsequently discarded. Focusing specifically on the lyrics, a concise Thesaurus definition of FOLKLORE would be ‘tales from the past.’ Expanding that concept relative to national identity, custom, tradition, wisdom and even myth are embraced by Black. Jeff has resided in the “capital of country music” for a number of decades; utilizing old-school acoustic instruments, FOLKLORE is an intentional collection of folk ballads. This is True Americana, when compared with the plethora of music that is touted as such.

The album opens on a dark and stormy night as the weary Rider Coming struggles to reach home – a concept as old as time, it possesses a contemporary parallel for the travelling troubadour. Decades pass as we journey through our allotted three-score-and-ten; while attempts to walk in ancestral footsteps often results in revelation they can equally conjure a deal more unanswered questions. The torn and faded photo that graces the album cover was taken, one sunny winter day, around 1930, by Jeff’s paternal grandmother Lotos Nile. Standing on the right Jeff’s father shades his eyes, interpreted by his son as “looking into the future.” Uncle Lyle is on the left, and akin to ‘the past’ is already physically fading into infinity. Music enriched the lives of Black’s ancestors – Lotos played piano in church - and her boys performed at dances and socials during the 1930’s, driven by economic necessity rather than creative intention and inspiration. Jeff simply had no choice, having most assuredly inherited a ‘music gene.’

Featuring banjo, Cages Of My Heart is a compassionate ode to love that closes “I want to fly you down the dirt roads of my soul.” ‘63 Mercury Meteor recalls a decades ago, winter road trip, with his dad and younger sister, aka the “little drifters on a gypsy road.” Jeff and his kids, Emerson and Zuzu, penned Lemonade a fantasy for children of all ages, while the narrator of #10 Bus enjoys a trip to town where he witnesses a puppet show. No Quarter explores that tension-filled instant before guns are drawn and mayhem ensues. Concluding that confrontation cannot be avoided, one protagonist admits “I don’t even know what I’m fighting for now,” and brimming with confidence cautions “pray for my enemy.”

In the spirit of the late Pete Seeger, Sing Together advocates that “If we sing together” then “We can change the world.” With satellites “flying through the western sky,” born in Okemah on (American) Independence Day – “right place just the wrong time” - the seemingly-familiar central character in Flat Car wears an old top hat, hops trains and learns “to play the guitar.” Set in the north of Black’s home state, the almost five-minute long travelogue Decoration Day closes FOLKLORE.

Recollections of the generational connectedness of family life, during a simpler age, reside at the heart of FOLKLORE. It’s a precious trait that many fail to practice with any intensity here in the 21st millennium.

http://www.jeffblack.com/

Photo Credit:

Jeff Black (Michael Wilson)

Jeff Black - In the heart of Arcana Studio, Nashville (Circa 2006) (credit not known)

From the desk of the Folk Villager - No Depression