Photo by John Patrick Gatta
memories of lifetimes
in his head
“you have a visitor, should I let him in?”
- “1961,” Jackie Greene
One can almost see the torch being passed on Jackie Greene’s new album Till the Light Comes. It is a frank and well-structured record. But, it is also a loose and open commentary on where the singer is at in 2010. And where he is at is a reflection of all that has come before, and all that passes through his visionary mind in the fading sunset of a music business that appears either dead, or, worse, lingering on in some sort of sad limbo state that is neither relevant, nor resilient. However, Greene appears to transcend those very real modern music issues by recording songs of timeless resonance. He also tours with a crack band that knows where he is going, even if the singer/songwriter/guitarist appears to have no plan, no compass, no map at all. He’ll get there, sure; but, it’ll be a fun and unpredictable ride along the way. With the Phil Lesh & Friends band on hiatus while Furthur tours, Greene finds himself returning to his solo artist roots with his finest work yet. In many ways, he stretches beyond himself to collect from history, and add on to the rich American traditions that have rolled past him.
Jambands.com caught up with Greene before his tour opening for Gov’t Mule, which begins on July 16 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The musician is a thoughtful, candid, humorous, and, yet, deeply humble young artist, caught in a timeless warp where his music, ironically, may have gotten more notice in the past, if not for the constraints of the contemporary music business. And yet, Greene does it the old-fashioned way—he takes the time to craft his music during many hours of “heavy bedroom songwriting,” as he so eloquently and playfully calls his process, and he takes his work on the road, trying to find that arc of a performance which will forever link him with the historical pedigree of some of the esteemed musicians he has shared the stage with in recent years—gentlemen like Phil Lesh, Larry Campbell, and Levon Helm, immediately come to mind. Upon repeated listenings of Till the Light Comes, Greene may no longer need to be continually associated with those prior generation legends to affix relevance to his young career. Indeed, the man’s work now fully stands on its own, even if Greene—to his credit—appears just as mystified about his gifts as does the legends who pay him their respects.
[Editor’s note: for an official video of the song “Shaky Ground,” directed by Jay Blakesberg, click here. In addition, click here to watch Greene cover the Grateful Dead’s “Sugaree,” live at the Relix office.]
Part I – A Moment of Temporary Color
That was when the strange things started to happen. He looked at his water as if to take a sip, but he felt quenched without drinking it.
- “Lunch Break,” Mike’s Corner, Mike Gordon
RR: How long did it take to record Till the Light Comes? Describe the involvement of co-producer and co-songwriter Tim Bluhm, who also is your band mate in the Skinny Singers, and co-owns Mission Bells Studios where the album was recorded.
JG: The whole recording took about a year, off and on. The thing is, working with Tim, or anybody else that is in another band is that when we are working together, it’s a whole scheduling issue. But, the initial sessions, we started off with “Shaky Ground,” “Stranger in Sand,” and “The Holy Land.” We did those in April of last year, and we used the [Mother] Hips and it worked out really well. It was really a great sound, and we stuck with that, and the songs developed. I guess the difference is this record is really the first record that we started and finished in our own studio. There really wasn’t a sense of a due date. The lesson I learned, and I think the lesson the label learned is to leave me alone, I’m making a record, and let it be done when it’s done. That’s definitely the way that I like to work.
RR: I’m impressed with the consistency of Till the Light Comes. There are layers of sounds that blend together quite well. There is also an overall strength to these songs, and I was wondering if you felt that impact of the entire piece, so this wasn’t just a collection of songs, but a unified work.
JG: Yeah, we demoed probably about fifteen, sixteen songs. As far as songwriting-wise, material-wise, it was clear which they were going to be. [ Till the Light Comes ] is only ten songs for a reason. I actually only wanted to do ten songs on my record. I didn’t want to make a really long record. I wanted to make a concise record. But at the same time, a lot of the songs on there explore musical outros—call ‘em as you call ‘em. That’s something I’ve always wanted to do. To me, in a way, “The Holy Land” and “Stranger in Sand”—a lot of these songs have these alternate endings. And that is the vibe that ties it musically together. They were written that way on purpose.
As far as there being a consistent sound, a lot of that is just due to the fact that it was all made in our own place. We didn’t cut a track in a different studio. We made it all there, so I think sonically that helps a lot. It is interesting that you bring up the density. In fact, there are actually a lot less instruments on this record. What it is, is that we had so much time to think about the parts, that we placed them very, very well. We figured out what was good. “Stranger in Sand” is a good example. There really is not that much stuff on that song—two guitars, bass, drums, an organ, and vocals—but everything has a place, and we figured it all out. You can really only do that if you are given enough time to figure it out, so that is a new thing for me, in a way. In the past, I always had to come up with something, come up with the hook, the riff, you know? And do it quick. I feel good about that. I feel like I’ve always been able to do it, but I feel like this time, it happened more naturally, I guess. I wasn’t forced to figure it out real quick. That might help and lend it to the more relaxed feeling that you might get on it.
It’s different in a lot of ways in terms of how we made it. Mainly, it’s just the time thing. We had plenty of time to do it. Having done it that way, I can’t really see of any other way to do it now. (laughs) Unless…I was talking with Jacob Dylan yesterday [at the Nateva Festival in Oxford Maine] about his new record [ Women + Country ], and he was telling me that they made it in like ten days. I love his new record. I love it. It’s minimal, and it’s exactly the kind of record I want to hear come out right now because it reminds me that you don’t need to have a whole bunch of stuff on a record for it to be good. And, you know, there is huge merit in that, too, on the other hand. This is the opposite of that. This is a little more painstaking, I guess. It’s interesting.
RR: I read your post about how you thought Jacob Dylan was Nateva’s best act.
JG: It was happening because—and the reason I said this (and I didn’t really say this on the post), and why I thought he was so great—at a festival like that, you know, it’s like a hippie fest, basically. There’s a lot of loud jambands, and a lot of noodling going on, and not a lot of songs happening. For him to go up there in his suit, with his band that’s quiet and sparse, and to just do song, song, song, and do what he does like that—to me, that’s extremely gutsy. He didn’t change anything that he did to fit where he was at. He did what he did. I thought it was really beautiful. I thought it was the best set that I heard. Granted, I wasn’t there all weekend.
Part II – Take Me Back in Time
…the music wove a web between the poles of dragon’s-breath wrathful-deity space jamming and simple tunes telling stories full of weird characters and situations out of American legend…
- Searching for the Sound, Phil Lesh
RR: With your new record, you wrote songs that are cinematic. You’ll also have one line that stands out, and it’ll tell me different things. What is intriguing about what you just said about Dylan is that Till the Light Comes sounds like the music that comes after the jam is over—like the real songs. I like the ‘density’ word you used because the arrangements will build up to these false endings, much like a film scene where they’ll be a dramatic peak, and then the aftermath. Do you think of those types of things when you are writing?
JG: Right. Well, yeah, in my mind, the idea of the alternate ending is very cinematic by nature because it is like if you have one emotional direction, and then, depending on how different that ending is, you abruptly change it, or you can lift it somewhere else. That’s very cinematic. That happens in films all the time. All that stuff is on purpose because I couldn’t have the song “Stranger in Sand” without that outro. I needed that outro for it to be complete. I don’t know why. I honestly don’t know why, but when I was writing I kept getting to that point, and I kept playing this other part. And I’d think, “What do you think about—well, that works; that’s how it goes.” (laughter) I couldn’t really tell you how else it happened.
I guess a lot of that mentality is some of that Grateful Dead stuff wearing off on me. Those songs, particularly the live versions, have a lot of that going on. After playing with Phil, and loosening up, I guess, if you will, my mind around it, it rubbed off that way in the songwriting.
RR: Yes, there is also a tone of world-weariness in the wise tales and observations of much of the Dead material. Has playing with musicians rooted in those elements contributed to your stage persona and identity as a musician and songwriter?
JG: Absolutely. It has to. I believe in order to continue to write songs and to be relevant, you need to be able to soak up your experiences, and put them into song. You can’t sit there doing the same thing, over and over and over again, because it becomes stale, and it becomes…you might have been relevant and, all of a sudden, it’s not. It’s important to change and grow and allow yourself the freedom to fail. (laughs) That is the biggest thing that Phil [Lesh] ever gave to me—freedom to fail—because he’s basically pretty fearless.
RR: Do you think that’s why a lot of artists get creatively constipated? They have the fear that what they are doing won’t go over with a certain segment of the population? In a way, they turn inwards and become cowardly?
JG: Yeah, I think so. I really believe so, and we all experience that. I experienced that a lot on this record—“what if people think it’s stupid?” And I thought, “You know—this is what I like, and this is what I’m into, so it doesn’t matter.” The freedom to fail—you need to give yourself that because sometimes, you will fail, but the only way to get (laughs)…you can’t hit the home run if you don’t swing. You’ve got to get the bat off your shoulders. (laughs) I’ll stop with the baseball metaphors.
RR: Not a problem with me at all. It’s interesting. I recently read this interview where a musician said, “You could be around for 46 years in the music business, and it doesn’t mean you can just go in the studio, and immediately hit a home run.”
JG: It’s true. Unless…you know…maybe, you’re juicin’. (laughter) Even then…right now, it’s a pitcher’s ball game. (laughter)
RR: There are songs on Till the Light Comes which sound like they’ve been around forever, and have a rich, classic feel. Let’s talk about “1961,” and the story behind that song—the son seeing his father on his death bed after a lifetime spent apart.
JG: I don’t want to say it is autobiographical because I wasn’t born in 1961, but my father left when I was young. It is a story that has been well-told many times, and one night, I was thinking about it, and imagining myself—it’s just that. It’s a story that a lot of people can relate to, and it’s still a heartbreaking story, and it happens over and over and over again, and it will probably never stop happening as long as men are men and women are women. (laughs)
I don’t know. It came out one night. A lot of songs came out that way like “The Holy Land.” The vocal that you hear on the record is actually the demo vocal because I felt like I couldn’t sing it any purer than that because it’s really hard to get amped up to do a song like that, to sing that song. It’s not an amped up song at all. It’s got to feel melancholy. It’s got to feel down.
RR: I love that lyric in “The Holy Land”— but there’s a price for paradise I am made to pay. Where does that come from?
JG: On the first Phil tour, I was reading a lot of books on the Middle East. That situation is extraordinarily complex. I was thinking to myself, “well, what about the human perspective? What is it like to be a human being over there?” I’m trying not to take sides. I’m trying to take the human angle, I guess, and it just came out that way. That song was written, literally, in one evening of just heavy bedroom songwriting. (laughs) It came out that way, the inspiration, the chord progression started off a little bit like “China Doll” [Grateful Dead song]. That song has always been really emotional to me. I don’t really know why, but I always thought it was really pretty. I don’t know. I weaved the two thoughts together, I guess. It’s hard to say. I don’t really know (laughs) how some of this stuff comes out; it just comes out.
Part III – I Got a Plan, Said I Got a Plan
Dylan’s singing comes from a distance, the distance of age, of experience; this man is not satisfied, but he knows he will never be more satisfied than he is now.
- Invisible Republic, Greil Marcus
RR: I like the idea of two thoughts coming together because it makes me think of the two paths you’ve had—one with Phil Lesh & Friends, legacy performers, and then, your solo career, which focuses on original material. Sometimes, the two paths meet, and sometimes, they don’t. One example where the two met, and it worked, was your June appearance with Levon Helm’s all star birthday band at Mountain Jam.
JG: Oh, yeah, that was great. Oh, man, I mean Levon…if I could…if there was the word ‘Americana’ in the dictionary, his picture should be right there. He’s everything. He’s pretty much everything that I ever wanted to be (laughs) in terms of a singer, and a player, and a personality—he’s the guy. I don’t know what else to say. He’s legendary. When he’s on the kit, his feel is incredible. It’s like you look over and “that’s Levon Helm! Sounds and feels like Levon Helm. Well, that’s him.” He’s a hero of mine. I don’t get that star struck anymore. I do, but I try and hide it, but I can’t really hide it when I’m with him. I’m such a big fan. I feel like a little kid, and he’s so gracious and humble.
RR: “Spooky Tina” on Till the Light Comes reminds me of some of the music Levon played very early on in his career in the 50s and 60s—that raw late-at-night music.
JG: “Spooky Tina” is sort of a late night thing I was working on. It’s kind of a silly song. There are heavy songs on the record, and I said, “We need a little levity, and something fun. I don’t want people to kill themselves for God’s sake.” (laughter) So, I had this song, and I was kind of thinking to myself ‘60s dance party’ and that whole Farfisa box organ thing going on, but, you know, in the context of my high school life. Spooky Tina, herself, is like a goth chick. When I was in high school, the goth kids were sort of the made-fun-of underground kids. I don’t know how to say it; it’s been a long time since I’ve been to high school, but that is what I remember. I remember having a strange attraction to some of these goth girls (laughs) because I knew they were fun. I didn’t know how or why, but I knew they were fun, though.
RR: Yeah, I enjoy some of those thought processes you share with the listener or reader, including your blog passages on your site. You wrote one post that struck home with me about the element of sacrifice in every true artist’s career. I am sure you have made your own personal and professional sacrifices. Are you thinking about them from time to time as you continue on your career path?
JG: I do think about it. The element of sacrifice is, I think…for anybody that wants to take that path, and really dive in, they’re going to have to give up something. For most people, most of the time, it is personal relationships, or you’ve got to drop out of school, or something. It boils down to this—every kid’s parents, and if I had kids, I’d probably tell them the same thing, say, “You’ve got to have a backup plan.” The truth is you can’t have a backup plan. If you’re going to do something in the arts, you’ve got to go 100%. It’s the same as wanting to be a major league ballplayer; here, to do this again. I don’t know…unless you’re extraordinarily talented, and there are very few that ever think about anything else but playing major league baseball—that’s what they wanted to do. And they gave up something, too.
In regards to the arts, music, in particular—that’s all I really know about—I dropped out of college, I’m single, I don’t have (laughs)…it hurts a lot of personal relationships to go on the road a lot…and, you know, it’s not an easy thing. It’s perfectly normal, it’s perfectly fine, if you want to give up and be a dentist. That’s fine, too. The world needs dentists. I need a dentist for God’s sake. People have to realize that it’s not all fun and games. You don’t have everything. Tom Petty doesn’t have everything. There is something he’s missing, too. I don’t know what it is, but there’s got to be something.
RR: That line of reasoning ties in with what you said earlier about Phil Lesh’s lesson about the freedom to fail. It negates a backup plan. If you do have a backup plan, you’re always going to be thinking of the situations where you are going to fail. I mean—that’s human nature right there. You’ll prepare for that failure. Well, if you don’t have the backup plan, you’re more willing to do this until something just completely prevents you from being an artist.
JG: Yeah, it’s like a little psychological thing. If you do have a backup plan, then (laughs) you might not push as hard as you should. If you have nothing to fall back on, then you have to do it. That’s what you’ve got to do.
RR: And speaking of baseball, you are the second musician in a row that I’ve interviewed that just got done singing the National Anthem. He sang before a Chicago Cubs game, and you, of course, sang before a San Francisco Giants game.
JG: Oh, cool. Right on. It was nerve-wracking, but now that I’ve done it once, I feel like I can do it again, and I’d be the better for it. It’s an honor because I love baseball so much. That’s funny you mentioned the Cubs because the Giants and Cubs are my two favorite teams. It’s really tough to be a Cubs fan. It’s tough. (laughter) I feel for Cubs fans everywhere. I do, and, actually, Giants fans, too.
It was really cool. I was rehearsing, and Aubrey Huff [Giants first baseman] came over and said, “Man, that’s a really cool version. I’ve never heard it done like that.” I did a finger-picking, folk-y version of it. I thought that was pretty cool. He asked for my CD, and I felt like a dork, and I gave him one of my CDs. (laughs) Unfortunately, the Giants lost that night, but it was fun. I had never stepped foot on a major league field before, and, you know, that’s the best grass in the world. Hippies might disagree with me.
RR: How do you prepare for an unusual setting like that? I imagine you know how the crowd is thinking, in all due respect—“Come on, get on with it.”
JG: I know. Get on with it. Being a guy who goes to a lot of baseball games, I knew that. You know—no one likes the Anthem guy. You have to stand up and go, “Where do I put my Nachos?” (laughter) Basically, what people want is they want it short and sweet. You don’t have to drag it out; it’s not the All Star game. I just did it short and sweet, and it went over really well, actually. It didn’t help the Giants win any, unfortunately, but I was out there, and I got to stand on a major league ball field for about two minutes. I couldn’t really prepare anymore than practicing what I was going to do, and mentally preparing by realizing that, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal. If you think about how many National Anthems are sang every year—162 games a year times all the teams divided by two, and whatever that is, it is a lot.
RR: Sticking with the baseball theme, you’ve also noted along the way that you thought that Bob Dylan is the “Ty Cobb of songwriting.”
JG: Sure, yeah.
RR: Who would you aspire to be as a musician in a baseball context?
JG: In a baseball context, I would say that Bob Dylan is the Ty Cobb because of his lifetime batting average. Every ten songs, he’s got at least three that are great. But, Tom Petty seems to me like he’s got more of the Joe DiMaggio—he’s got a streak (laughs); he’s got a really good streak of songs. Somewhere there in the late 70s and 80s, every song was a hit. It is like Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak [56 straight games in 1941].
Uhhh, who would I aspire to be? God, I don’t know. That’s all hitting context. I wonder if there’s a pitching context to that. I guess pitchers would have to be like the opposition. Who would I aspire to be? I would aspire to be the Willie Mays, the all-around player [Mays’ nickname was the “Say Hey Kid”].
RR: There you go—“Say Hey” Willie Mays of the Giants. You are about to head out on a summer tour of your own, opening for Gov’t Mule. Last year, you also played several gigs opening for the Mule, including a high marquee show on Halloween, where you joined Warren Haynes and the band when they covered Stones songs.
JG: The Stones thing was really great. We had a list of what we were going to do, and it’s funny because we didn’t…we were like “Oh, yeah, we’ll rehearse it at soundcheck tomorrow.” We never got to it. Never got to it ‘til the day of the show. But we’d all been thinking about it so much that we didn’t really end up needing a rehearsal so much. We knew all the parts. In a lot of ways, sometimes that’s the best way to go, particularly if it’s covers. You don’t want to overthink it too much. If you overthink it too much, it gets trite. You work too hard to sound like Keith, or whatever, but, a) you’re not Keith.
RR: And the Stones are definitely all about the feel, too?
JG: Yeah. Yeah. You’ve got to keep it loose, and I think Mule is really good at that because they do a lot of covers, and they are the kings of doing that with a really good feel, but still keeping their feel. It was a good time.
RR: What are your thoughts about going out on the road with the Mule?
JG: I’m looking forward to the tour on a lot of levels, mainly because it is going to be fun to do a lot of these new songs from the record, to see how that happens. We get along really well with those guys, and I imagine, hopefully, I’ll be able to do some songs with them. It should be fun because a lot of those places are places that we don’t normally go to like Florida and Alabama. It should be a good time—hot and sticky. (laughter)
