jeb at la java video
hear a jolt of jeb
Fascinating double bill with two of the most soulful alt-country-americana voices that can be heard on record or stage. From North Carolina (Ryan Adams country) comes the highly acclaimed Tift Merritt whose influences range from Emmylou Harris to Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin. Jeb Loy Nichols is out of Arkansas and his influences spread between Buck Owens, Peter Tosh and Al Green (with a touch of Sam Cooke for good measure). Regardless of their influences both performers are outstanding song-writers and moving stage performers. This will be the first time that they have appeared together so we can justifiably expect something unique and rare to take place at la Java.
Jeb Loy Nichols
Up front and outfront of the HdN 24th April
Jeb Loy Nichols / Stuart Stapes / Ron Sexsmith
En Concert et Encadré
In Concert at the Hôtel du Nord
and On The Walls Of The Sound Gallery*
Monday 23 & Tuesday 24 April 8 p.m.
Born in Wyoming and raised in Missouri on the sounds of bluegrass and Kansas City late-night R&B radio, singer-songwriter, painter and writer Jeb Loy Nichols left home for New York at eighteen with a Parsons School Of Design scholarship under his arm. As serendipity would have it, he ended up in London instead, where he immersed himself in reggae, shared digs and swapped ideas with Neneh Cherry and Adrian Sherwood, worked with Sherwood's On-U Sound, designed sleeves for Pressure Sounds, made records with Dave Schramm for Okra and led dub/roots/anarcho-Americana band the Fellow Travellers, one of the last decade's better kept musical secrets and an outfit Spin aptly dubbed "the lonesome children of Merle, Marley and Marx."
Jeb Loy Nichols' Rykodisc/Rough
Trade release "JUST WHAT TIME IT IS" - is one of the most soulful
records of recent memory, one with a peerless post-Bob Marley pedigree and echoes
of Muscle Shoals' slow-southern burn and Stax/Volt's sweet surrender. It's supple,
subtle, and seductive.
When asked to sum up the appeal of Jeb Loy Nichols, the dean of American rock
writers Robert Christgau replies, "The Bellamy Brothers thought a reggae-country
interface would be cute, and they were right. Jeb Loy Nichols thinks it gets
to the heart of the mysterious sexiness of everyday life, and he's righter."
Aided and abetted by his bandmates and co-producers-bassist and Tricky sideman
Wayne Nunes and young house DJ and co-producer Ewan Pearson (aka Maas)-and two
brief but intensely productive sessions in studios in Kent and Jamaica, Jeb
Loy Nichols album is warm, sensual and elegantly laid-back. If you thought that
reggae and country make for odd bedfellows, you'd better make room for a few
more under the covers, because the last time Jeb Loy Nichols released an album,
1997's North American grass-roots and radio success Lovers Knot, the Philadelphia
Weekly proclaimed it "the best soul album of the year".
* Exposition "Trying To Get Over"
the art-work of Jeb Loy Nichols
at the Sound Gallery from April
26th
More can be seen and heard on www.jebloynichols.com