Jack Barksdale February Artist of the Month

 

Jack Barksdale

Death of a Hummingbird

 

  

Your first impression of Death of a Hummingbird might be that the vocals sound very young. You’re right, but you might want to cut some slack; Jack Barksdale is young–as in all of 14 now and just 13 when he made this record. Now listen to the instrumentals and you’ll wonder who the older dude is playing in the background. That’s also Barksdale. Now you’ll wonder how in the blazes a kid that young has fingers that old. Yep, this youngster from Fort Worth, Texas, is the proverbial child prodigy–and an enigmatic one at that.

 

One of the great debates about human beings is whether we are products of nature or nurture. Insofar as Barksdale is concerned, he’s almost entirely a force of nature. His father Brent says he can’t sing a note, has never played an instrument, and listened to a lot of Nirvana and Leonard Cohen when Jack was even younger–not exactly fodder for a repertoire that leans heavily upon blues and country with a just a tiny bit of Cohen around the edges. His mother Clara may have influenced him some by playing Nancy Griffith and Lucinda Williams records, but neither she nor Brent had the slightest idea until several years later that Jack had been writing original songs since he was seven. Ask Jack and he’ll tell you that his influences (besides Cohen) were Johnny Cash, Guy Clark, Lead Belly, Willie Nelson, and Townes Van Zandt. And he’s not just name-dropping. 

 

 

It's weird enough hearing blues from a pre-pubescent voice, or see Barksdale sharing stage swith grizzled vets, but it’s stunning to hear him go down the fretboard on guitar (acoustic, electric, slide), ukulele, and mandolin; blow out soulful notes on the harmonica; and tickle the old (non-) ivories on keyboards. Plus, I don’t know about you, but when I was 13, I would have had a lot of trouble fitting phrases like “translucently moving through time,” “blinded by the clouds,” “keep the spider fed,” “gypsy day dreams,” or “raindrops soaking my moral stances” into any kind of intelligible sentence, let alone fitting them into a song. And I’m 100% certain I couldn’t have written a song about young love like “Death of a Hummingbird.” (At 13, I wasn’t even looking for it!)

 

I’ll confess that I’m not a big fan of kids’ voices but man, can this youngster play! I can already imagine him a few years from now singing in deeper tones, and it’s almost scary to consider how much better he’ll be as an instrumentalist. “Sideways” feels like a novelty song at present. Now picture it with a voice that can add some spit and gravel and it becomes a Barksdale staple for years to come. He also delves into spooky gospel-influenced blues (“Revival Song No. 3”), sizzles the strings on “Bugle Boy Blues,” and I can only wonder where he came up with blues like “World Full of Nothing” and “Man in the Ground” My cowboy hat’s off to Barksdale for even having the guts to put blues like those on an album. I mean, sheesh, he’s not old enough to have that many blues.

 

Here he is on slide. Wait until he grow into those cowboy boots!  

 

 Rob Weir