Jackie Greene has today announced his full spring 2017 touring plans with the Sweetwater Spring Tour, beginning with a special six-night residency at the Sweetwater Music Hall on Friday, March 24. For the first time in his career, the first sets of each residency show will be dedicated to performing one of his albums in its entirety, starting with his first album and playing songs that have not been performed in 10+ years.
Jackie Greene Joins New Artist Collective, Blue Rose Music
San Francisco, CA: Jackie Greene and Joe Poletto, Founder of Blue Rose Music, today announced a unique business partnership agreement. Blue Rose Music is an artist collective that brings a technology start-up structure to the music business, with comprehensive, value based business development and guidance for the artist. This unique venture will apply sophisticated brand development and marketing strategies to increase Greene’s successful touring business while providing creative support with a forward leaning approach to recording and publishing.
Jackie Greene To Appear At Los Muertos Con Queso, January 25-28, 2017
Jackie Greene joins the Los Muertos Con Queso lineup, Jan 25-28, Riviera Maya, Mexicon
We are thrilled to join the lineup for Los Muertos con Queso on the beach in Mexico in January! This once-in-a-lifetime concert vacation will feature six full sets of Bill Kreutzmann and Bob Weir playing classic Grateful Dead tunes on the beach with their friends Dave Schools, Jeff Chimenti and Tom Hamilton.
Los Muertos Con Queso, Jan 25-28, 2017, Riviera Maya, Mexico
The String Cheese Incident will also play six sets, including a very special daytime set on the beach, with additional performances from The Chris Robinson Brotherhood and other special guests and unique collaborations still to be announced. Join CID Presents in Riviera Maya, Mexico,
January 25 - 28, 2017
! Learn more at
.
Jackie Greene joins the 5th Annual Nolafunk Jazzfest Series: Dead Feat & Voodoo Dead II
Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 4.49.18 PM
NEW ORLEANS, LA (January 28, 2015) – Nolafunk is proud to present the initial lineup for its 5th Annual Nolafunk Jazzfest Series. This year features a number of incredibly special performances from musicians inside and out of the New Orleans cultural sphere; however they all embrace the spirit and essence of the city. The series has kept to its tradition of unique lineup pairings, combining older musicians with younger ones, as well as national acts with local ones.
Jackie Greene will be performing with Dead Feat, a band that performs Grateful Dead and Little Feat, and comprised of Anders Osborne, Paul Barrere & Fred Tackett of Little Feat, Jackie Greene, John Gros, Brady Blade, and Carl Dufrene.
Jackie will also be joining this year's Voodoo Dead II line-up along with Steve Kimock, Jeff Chimenti, Jackie Greene, George Porter Jr., JM Kimock, and special guests to be announced. Full announced lineup below.
Under the Nolafunk moniker, Manhattan-based CEG honors the musical heroes and spirit of New Orleans in New York City all year round, producing concerts in the Big Apple featuring many of the Big Easy's finest musicians, such as Dr. John & the Nite Trippers, Rebirth Brass Band, Kermit Ruffins, Bonerama, Eric Lindell, Jon Cleary, Marc Broussard and many more. In addition, CEG amasses all-star Nola-centric lineups for both the annual Nolafunk Mardi Gras Ball and the annual Nolafunk Summer Jazzfest. CEG & Nolafunk have had a long history producing shows in New Orleans since 2007.
Fans can sign up for the Nolafunk email list at www.nolafunk.com/nola for exclusive access to purchase tickets weeks before anyone else and at a discount. Shows go on sale to the general public Wednesday February 10 at 12pm EST / 11am CST. Tickets are available through Ticketweb.com, Nolafunk.com/nola, and (866) 777- 8932.
Dead Feat featuring Anders Osborne, Paul Barrere & Fred Tackett of Little Feat, Jackie Greene, Brady Blade, Carl Dufrene, John Gros Saturday April 23, 2016 9pm Doors 10pm Show
Howlin' Wolf $47.50 Advance GET TICKETS
Dead Feat featuring Anders Osborne, Paul Barrere & Fred Tackett of Little Feat, Jackie Greene, Brady Blade, Carl Dufrene & more Sunday April 24, 2016 9pm Doors 10pm Show
Howlin' Wolf $47.50 Advance GET TICKETS
Voodoo Dead II featuring Steve Kimock, Jackie Greene, Jeff Chimenti, George Porter Jr., JM Kimock + special guests 2 Shows! Late Nite Saturday at 2AM (technicallySunday May 1, 2016) and Sunday May 1 at 10PM
Republic New Orleans $47.50 Advance GET TICKETS
Jackie Greene Band
The Jackie Greene Band is (Left to Right)... Nathan Dale - Guitar, Vocals
Jackie Greene - Guitar, Piano, B3, Vocals
Jon Cornell - Bass
Fitz Harris - Drums, Vocals
Rolling Stone: Jackie Greene talks to Dave Rawlings in Episode #2 of Guitar Power
See Dave Rawlings Show Off His Scavenged Vintage Guitar
D'Addario's latest installment of its Guitar Power series focuses on the singer-songwriter's 1935 Epiphone
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/see-dave-rawlings-show-off-his-scavenged-vintage-guitar-in-new-series-20151014#ixzz3oZ0SWyBS Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
Rolling Stone: See Luther Dickinson and Jackie Greene Jam in New Guitar Series
See Luther Dickinson and Jackie Greene Jam in New Guitar Series
D'Addario's Guitar Power collection features host Greene trading stories and licks with a range of guitar heros
The secret to Luther Dickinson's signature wailing slide-guitar groove? Start with the basics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b31I1QSPO5g
"In my community, everybody played with their fingers and everybody played slide guitar and open tuning," the North Mississippi Allstars frontman tells Jackie Greene, who sat down together during Nashville's Americana Fest to discuss Dickinson's approach to his instrument. And, of course, do a little noodling. (The two did time in the Black Crowes at different points in the band's career.) When Dickinson plays, his fingers do the walking — something host Greene points out in the video, the first of D'Addario's Guitar Power acoustic series.
"I don't think I've ever seen you use a pick," says Greene.
"I do, and I love them," insists Dickinson — though you're much more likely to see him capturing a "loose and light" style where he climbs freely along the entire neck of the guitar. He credits this approach to some early coaching from his father, Jim, a musician who played with Ry Cooder and pushed his son to study the rock & roll greats.
"He showed me Bo Diddley, and that's a great place to learn," Dickinson says, passing on this bit of advice to any aspiring axe-people: "I think the key to learning guitar with slide or your fingers is one string at a time."
As much as Dickinson is known for his guitar chops (he even has his own signature Gibson ES-335), he actually doesn't rely on the instrument as a songwriting tool.
"I like piano and drums. That's really my favorite way, to get a beat," he says, before dissolving into a "slow and bluesy" jam with Greene. "Get your song written, and then take it apart as if it wasn't even yours."
Future installments of the D'Addario Guitar Power series include guests David Rawlings, Chance McCoy from Old Crow Medicine Show and Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek.
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
No Depression: The Naked Truth from Jackie Greene - Back To Birth
INTERVIEW
BY ANNE MARGARET DANIEL SEPTEMBER 15, 2015
He's played with Phil Lesh & Friends, the Dead, Warren Haynes and Government Mule, the Black Crowes, and, when the intensely busy schedule he's kept for most of the past ten years permits, on his own. These days, Jackie Greene is out and about, in a town near you, with a lovely, lyrical new record of songs from the heart.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO NO DEPRESSION OR CONTINUE ON...
Since 2010, Greene has been "edging toward" making this record. He began writing songs that fit together, and he wanted a sound that was something more -- or rather less -- than clean and spare. Stripped down, I suggest in a recent interview. Even less than that. "These are songs that wanna be naked," he says, chuckling. "Songs for nudists."
Greene started working on Back to Birth (YepRoc 2015) in 2012. "The idea was to do it at my home studio," he explains. "[But] for one reason or other I wasn't stoked, so I set it aside." Then Greene ended up on tour with the Black Crowes for a year. "I went back to it in 2014. By that time, the versions I'd recorded at home became the demos."
The years cycled by, and the songs were, appropriately, written that way too. "[Back to Birth] has got a cyclical existence," he says. "There's a subtext to the whole record, a connecting tissue holding these songs together."
One of those vital connections is the death of Greene's father, who passed away in 2011 and to whom the record is dedicated. "I always wanted it to have an organic feeling," Greene says. "We'd figured out which songs went together already, and recorded it in about eight or nine days. The whole idea was because the batch of songs were, to me, a more honest approach of songwriting. It's a record without a lot of trickery."
The honesty, and simplicity -- though the record is nowise simple, in its lyrics and musical style -- is reflected in the song titles: "Hallelujah" and "Light Up Your Window" and "Trust Somebody," and even in the look of Back to Birth. It's packaged without fanfare or even color, in black and white, riveting visually in its modesty and reminiscent of JT, The Times They Are a-Changin', and other stark but spectacular solo albums.
Greene describes Back to Birth repeatedly in physical terms, once calling it "an itch I needed to scratch. It feels right, at this time in my life." He's 34 now, 35 on November 27.
Did he write the songs at the piano, on his guitar? "When I sit down to write a song," he explains, "I don't really prefer one or the other. I don't view instruments as more than a means to an end, then. [I use] them for getting down what's in my head, in my heart."
Nonetheless, he continues, "it just felt right to stay on the piano. The songs dictated that to me."
A guitar, after all, is an instrument for traveling. And a piano, unless you can afford to hit the road with your baby grand, is an instrument for staying at home. These songs feel homegrown -- perhaps the piano played into this. "When we went to record," he says, "we kinda just needed a good grand piano and a tape machine."
What was he listening to while he was writing these songs? Greene's answer is immediate: "the same music as Jerry Garcia, though without so much acid involved," he jokes. "Not contradictory at all."
There was a lot of old gospel on Greene's playlist too, particularly Mahalia Jackson. "I mean, I wrote a song called 'Hallelujah,' for God's sake," he quips.
You can hear the influences. Many of the tracks on Back to Birthwould sound good in a church, as is true of many Grateful Dead songs, which ring like a mash-up of the bluest Delta blues and a backwoods camp meeting. Greene listened to other Americana, too -- old blues, work songs. So, I had to ask: would he call Back to Birth an Americana record? Yes, as long as that word, to quote Walt Whitman, contains multitudes.
"Americana," muses Greene. "It's just like anything that feels roots-based: blues, folk, gospel. We need a word to classify things. Real art to me is when people make something out of nothing. Like slaves, working in the field, living in the worst human condition imaginable, yet they created beauty with spirituals and the blues. That's the real deal."
Indeed, Back to Birth is no typical contemporary release, no set of slick songs co-written by many and co-produced by more. "No gimmicks," says Greene, "not shiny. It doesn't buy you a latte." He wants his music to be "more mesmerizing, that's the word, than anything else."
California Boy
A California boy, born and raised in Salinas, Greene now also has a place in Brooklyn. "Bicoastal, that's what I am now," he says, with a smiling hint of healthy self-deprecation. He loves the San Francisco Giants, but also delights in New York's vast music scene, frequently heading over and up to Carnegie Hall for concerts. "The first time I went [to Carnegie Hall]," he remembers, "was with Phil [Lesh]. We got all dressed up, black tie, and heard the Vienna Philharmonic do Mahler's 9th."
Greene is on both his home coasts, but not neglecting the rest of the country either, through the end of the year.
We spoke just before his current tour began, and Greene was, he said, "looking forward to playing with two guitars, bass, and drums, a down and dirty rock band." That down and dirty band is constituted of Greene on guitars and keyboards, Nathan Dale on guitar, Brian Filosa on bass, and Fitz Harris on drums. The tour isn's a necessary chore, but to hear Greene talk about it and about his record, more of a holiday for him. "This is a way to kinda let it breathe," he says of his airing the songs live.
By Labor Day, the band had half the songs in touring shape, with the rest well on the way. "We're going to see how the songs evolve. Someone said to me once, you better like the songs you write, because you're gonna get sick of playing them. That's bullshit." Greene doesn't get sick of his songs -- but he is always sensitive to an audience's reception of them.
"'Honey I Been Thinkin' About You' -- I rarely sing [that song] all the way, the last verse. I have to feel like I've got everybody's attention to do that." The songs of Back to Birth ask you to pay attention. The lyrics matter -- that's why they're printed out for you to read, the old-fashioned way.
Greene is pleased with how it all turned out. "[I made] a record I want make. And you have to really listen to the songs," he says. Indeed, Back to Birth is not a record for digital listening. As he says, it's for "anybody who cares about the album as an art form. It demands that you listen to it as an album, front to back. It demands physical attention." It demands some ceremony, and some time -- and be glad that it does, because those things are both sadly lacking in our world today. Go on, buy a turntable if you're unfortunate enough not to have one.
Anne Margaret Daniel 2015 Lead photo by Greg Vorobiov. Other photographs via @thejackiegreene and @realvenetianblonde on Instagram
"Light Up Your Window" Video
Santa Cruz Blues Festival - May 25th
Spend Memorial Day weekend at beautiful Aptos Village Park and the amphitheater in the Redwoods! Get details here: http://www.santacruzbluesfestival.com
