Jack Blackman
Listen to Stranger from the forthcoming album River Town (Folk Police Recordings 2011)
Listen to Stick Stock Stone from the forthcoming album River Town (Folk Police Recordings 2011)
  | "The sixteen year old British guitarist has learned to play well in the style of such heroes as Gary Davis and Graham, Jansch and Renbourne. Given his age and talent we shall no doubt be hearing more from the young Mr Blackman" fRoots
Jack Blackman is seventeen. We're not going to bang on incessantly about this because Jack's heartily sick of hearing about how he's some kind of wunderkind and frankly, it doesn't really matter - other than giving us pause to consider the obvious facts that he sings and writes in a voice way beyond his years and that he must have been playing the guitar before he was crawling to get that good. Actually, we know that last bit isn't true, because it's around seven years ago that he found his dad's old Jedson Telecaster copy in the loft. His dad told him that if he could learn to play ten chords properly, he'd buy him a decent guitar. Less than a week later he'd not only passed the test with flying colours, but found himself totally hooked, especially to playing the blues. Since then it's been a bit of a rollercoaster. He's been gigging regularly since he was 14 and as befits a Midlander, has played with shedloads of British rock and blues luminaries. Along the way there have been festival appearances, grants and award ceremonies. Last year he released a well received mini-album, Just a Game, and in autumn 2011 Folk Police Recordings will be bringing you Jack's first full length album, River Town, featuring eight of his own folk and blues influenced songs alongside a brace of traditional blues covers. With influences ranging from the folk guitar giants (Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Richard Thompson, John Martyn, Nick Drake, Nic Jones and Martin Carthy) to the heroes of early blues (Honeyboy Edwards, Skip James, RP Williams, Blind Blake, Rev Gary Davis, Charley Patton and Son House) to The Band, Fleet Foxes and the Felice Brothers, Jack's songwriting and fingerpicking guitar is a rare pleasure. |
