Jackie Greene

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When DIG Music owner Marty DeAnda happened into a local Sacramento folk pub’s Monday hoot night in the autumn of 2001 to meet up with his friend and label-mate, the legendary singer Sal Valentino (The Beau Brummels, Stoneground), DeAnda was clearly not expecting to hear anything impressive beyond Valentino’s fabled voice. But he did. A young kid with a big old-soul voice, guitar chops and plenty of musical confidence stepped up to the mike and made all room conversation cease. A few days later, DIG Music had their first new artist signed to the label.

Jackie Greene had blown into Sacramento only months earlier from a tiny old Northern California gold rush town that was, in it’s day, called Hangtown, but now is more discreetly named Placerville. Greene, a local just turned 21 then, sounded like a displaced Delta boy, picked up by Guthrie’s dustbowl winds and set down in Steinbeck and Saroyan Country.

Born in Monterey, California, Greene grew up in small town Cameron Park, thirty miles east of Sacramento. Along with his mom and three younger siblings at home, Greene had a piano and an old guitar his father had left. Mostly self-taught, Greene began playing in public at age 16, then, moved onto local Placerville coffeehouses after high school graduation. The move to nearby Sacramento, armed with a self-produced CD, was the next logical step. It paid off fast.

Greene is strikingly unself-conscious with a voice that is big and casually seductive in the way that Bob Dylan and Tom Waits voices are. Like his heroes, Dylan and Waits, his source material embraces folk, blues and country; the end result is both cutting edge and timeless.

Greene’s compactness of phrase with feeling is impressive. He can turn a beautiful line, he can lay down a lowdown lick and leave you wanting some more. He’s a smart young man who is an accomplished musician on acoustic and electric guitar, harmonica, piano and Hammond B-3 organ.

Jackie Greene has moved from hoot nights to high profile venues and major festival stages in a short amount of time since the November, 2002 release of GONE WANDERIN’ (DIG 106). The album won the California Music Award for the “Best Blues/Roots Album” in May 2003 and has remained on the national Americana Chart for over a year. In 2003, he toured nationally with singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi, blues master B.B. King and pop icon Huey Lewis, as well as dates with John Hiatt, George Thorogood and Taj Mahal. In virtually every venue, Green has set support act, house records for CD sales off the bandstand. He played high profile festival dates across the country the summer of 2003, including, the Newport Folk Festival, the Strawberry Music Festival, the Rhythm & Roots Festival and the San Francisco Blues Festival. In 2004, he toured nationally with Jonny Lang, Taj Mahal and the great Buddy Guy. He has also astounded crowds, playing select dates with Lyle Lovett, Richard Thompson, Los Lobos, John Hiatt and Los Lonely Boys and made thousands of new fans at some of the country’s biggest festivals including Doheny, Newport Jazz Festival and Winnipeg Folk Festival. Solo or with his driving band, Greene has lifted audiences to their feet, with encores and standing ovations following nearly every performance.

2005 has become Jackie Greene’s year. He celebrated the new year by signing with Verve/Forecast Records, there are tours planned with Los Lobos, Jewell and Willie Nelson and Jackie heads into the studio in April to begin work on his first Verve release produced by Steve Berlin.

Greene offers up a sound and vision that has gathered an extremely wide range of fans from pre-teen girls to heritage fans that came of age in the 60s and 70s. Like Raymond Carter or Lead Belly, Greene has taken the time to fashion poetically formed teardrops of songs along his journey.