Jackie Greene has earned the nickname “Prince of Americana” for his own albums, has toured the world with Phil Lesh, has played with nearly everyone at some point or another, can pick up any instrument (but the sitar, he admitted), but right now, he’s working on some new recordings and getting ready to do a run of intimate shows. When we spoke, Jackie had taken a dinner break, chilling and hanging out in Oakland with Shannon Sanders – the man behind the organ when Jackie tours and a great producer – writing some new songs. Jackie said they’d arrived at the “part where new shit is brewing, so we’re pumped up, we’re in the studio – playing some instruments, and having fun.” They have the room to record at their leisure and create new music instead of having to rush it out quickly, all thanks to Blue Rose Music.
This allows Jackie to take the time to put his heart into the music. “If it’s just a means to an end, and the end is to have some money, it’s more like a factory” and there’s no heart in it. This extra time also plays into Jackie’s musical personality well, as his saying for the band is, “I don’t want to micro-manage every 16th note.” Jackie tells the band how a song should feel instead of how it should sound, such as, “this should feel lethargic”, and then they follow the tempo cue, but ”it’s up to the musician”. Plus, as Jackie cracks, “it’s too much fucking work [to micro-manage], and I’m a lazy man.” While the last bit is certainly untrue – just look at his oeuvre – many of us are familiar with the pitfalls of micromanaging anything at all.
Jackie speaks with ease and kindness, as generous with his speaking time as he is on the stage. He recently released a new live album, fittingly called Live from Town Hall, featuring a range of songs including most of his catalogue, though somewhat emphasizing the most recent and excellent The Modern Lives EPs. Live from Town Hall has received such a positive response from the fans that Jackie shared “the plan is to keep doing it”, though he emphasized that “the reason it worked is everybody was on fire that whole night. And as a musician, when you’re up there, you can just feel that and you’re like man I’m glad I got that one.”
Jackie Greene is a consummate live performer, having played guitar, keys, bass, and even more than that onstage for a wide variety of acts. He recently played bass on the newest Mother Hips record, in the same studio from which he talked to me. When asked how he learned how to play so many instruments, Jackie said, “I’ve always loved music and since I’ve been a professional musician…well, some people like to buy houses in the Hamptons, but I like to buy musical instruments. I bought a legit sitar like maybe 15 years ago, and let me tell you, that’s a f— hard instrument to play, like to play it properly, and I was really trying to learn and that’s the only instrument I got so frustrated on that I had to give up.” He also added that, as far as his playing so many instruments, “I have like major musical ADD, where sometimes I’m a guitar player and sometimes a singer songwriter.”
He’s emphasizing that singer-songwriter side when he comes to City Winery on May 16th. Jackie is touring as an acoustic duo with Nate Dale, the guitarist from his band. Being able to do these shows is “like a palate cleanser…’cause at the end of the day, I’m still a songwriter as my main job.” He characterized the show as “a different vibe from the big rock show”, with more of a “campfire, VH1 storyteller thing.” Jackie promised to pull from deep in the catalogue, to play some stuff they haven’t played in awhile, specifically because “Nate finds the deep cuts.” He added, laughing, that “We should just sic people on Nate and tell them to get on his Twitter and Facebook and tell him what we should play.”
So go get on Nate Dale’s Twitter and Facebook pages (or Jackie’s) if you have any special requests. Make sure to see them at City Winery next week (May 16th) for great food and wine, but more importantly, all of Jackie’s songs.
