A week from tomorrow my new single, The Big Table drops. You can pre-order it now on my Bandcamp.
Here’s some behind-the-scenes footage from the recording with my producer Mark Addison and guitar player Billy Masters at The Aerie in Austin. I love those dudes so much.
Part of the reason I went back to Austin to record my last album When We Rise (and this single, The Big Table) was the feeling of creative abundance I felt when I lived there. The concentration of talent was and remains bar none. When I first moved to Austin it was on a wing and a prayer. I had $300 to my name and no clue how it would work out. I just trusted that this community of musicians would somehow show me the way, and they did.
All proceeds from the single will go to World Central Kitchen, who have returned to provide meals in Gaza despite 7 of their aid workers being killed.
Pre-Order it now for $5 or more. You can also get a lyric sheet, handwritten and signed by me for a donation of $25 or more.
I recently read Pete Hamill’s book Snow in August. A young Irish-American boy in Brooklyn in the late 1940’s befriends a rabbi from Prague who has lost faith in God because of everything he witnessed during The Holocaust. When anti-semitism rears it’s head in their Brooklyn neighborhood, the rabbi, despite his faithful ability to relay fantastical stories about how the Golem saved previous generations of Jews, can’t summon the Golem himself. It can only be done by the boy, Michael, a child with a pure heart.
The chorus of The Big Table talks about trusting - the universe, a higher power, God, whatever you call it. How someone in the middle of a genocide would have faith or trust in anything, I have no idea. I do believe it’s the responsibility of those of us who live in relative safety to dream a better world and to do everything we can to bring I about. I try to have that childlike spirit when I hope, and that’s where this song comes from.
Because this is a fundraiser, The Big Table will only be available on my Bandcamp, not streaming services like Spotify, Apple, etc.
HEADS UP TO MY PAID SUBSCRIBERS: OUR MONTHLY SALON WILL BE a 4TH SUNDAY SALON THIS MONTH, SUNDAY MAY 19TH. I will send registration info next week.
Excited to share I’ll join a host of great artists for the 61st Philadelphia Folk Festival this August! Been a long minute since I was in Philly! I’ll do some side stage stuff and a special full band set TBA on the Main Stage. GET TICKETS!
UPCOMING SHOWS:
5/24 Muddy Creek Music Hall, Sparta, NC - FULL BAND SHOW!
6/6 The Martha Bassett Show, Reeves Theater, Elkin, NC
6/20-23 Moccasin Creek Music Fest, Effingham, IL
7/21 HAUNT Concert Series, Radical Healing, Durham, NC - tickets coming soon
8/2 3rd Street Coffeehouse, Roanoke, VA
8/8 Gas Hill Drinking Room, Winston-Salem, NC - w/Grant Peoples
8/16-8/18 Philadelphia Folk Festival, Old Pool Farm, Upper Salford Township, PA
9/5-9/8 Antlers & Acorns Songwriters Festival, Boone, NC
Love y’all!
Jess
One Week til The Big Table + Summer Fests + 4th Sunday Salon