Jake Xerxes Fussell’s music is a balm in troubled times. It’s not just his drawling, honeyed vocals, or the nearly uniformly languid tempos, or his unhurried, uncluttered but precise guitar finger picking. For me at least, it’s the way his songs provide a glimpse into the lives of Americans long past through the eyes of an artist firmly grounded in the present moment.
Collectively, these songs seem to say, “Times are hard? Yeah, they sure are, but folks have always struggled, and singing songs like these is one way they have found the grit to carry on.“ Perspective with no preaching, I guess you’d say.
In case you’re not familiar, Fussell is a singer, guitarist and folk music interpreter. He adds only a slight post modern twist to the way the folk process has always worked, combining songs from different traditional sources in creative ways that, when you hear them, seem natural and intuitive. I think for him they are.
One of the most obvious examples is the first single, a refreshing new take on “Rock Island Line.” Now, like everybody else since the 1950s, Fussell is channeling the spirit of the song credited to Hudie Leadbetter via the arrangement of Lonnie Donegan, but that’s where the resemblance ends. He’s slowed it down, of course, but he’s also pretty drastically changed the melody and chord sequence, which has more of a minor key feel to it (and there’s one place where the downward sequence just after the chorus calls to mind “Blackbird”). But most of all he’s grafted on verses from an old English counting nursery rhyme called “Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn.”
Wire, briar, limber lock,
How many geese in our flock.
One flew east,
And one flew west,
And one flew over
The cuckoo’s nest.
Ben Whiteley’s production is excellent, fleshing out the arrangements in a way that never distracts from the songs. On “Rock Island Line,” for instance, Isa Burke plays subtle fiddle and piano, Wayne Horvitz some tasty harmonica lines, with Whitely on bass and Dominic Billett on unobtrusive drums. (Snagging Horvitz to for your record is quite a coup, and a perhaps a measure of the esteem for Fussell in the upper echelons of the American roots music world.)
Another single is an equally personalized take on “Boll Weevil,” quite different from most that you’d have heard during the folk revival of the previous century. This one hews a little closer to old blues oriented versions, but Fussell has cobbled his together from a wide variety of sources, which puts the spotlight on the way the song has been understood by different subcultures at different times: sometimes as a straight complaint about an agricultural pest, other times symbolic of attitudes about immigration or the hardships of share cropping.
Most emblematic of Fussell’s approach is “Boney,” which draws from centuries of evolution of an old shanty about Napoleon. Jake alternates between acoustic and electric guitars, and his electric playing on this one is particularly spidery, to quote from the one-sheet.
My early favorites are the opening track “No. 1,” a dreamy electric guitar instrumental written by Fussell, its lovely melody enhanced by deep reverb on the guitar, some more of Horvitz’s harp and Whitely’s droning reed organ; and the old Irish folk song “Early Early In The Spring,” with subtle harmony vocals from Burke.
Jake Xerxes Fussell is touring this fall. Check his website for dates.
(Fat Possum, 2026)
I’ve reviewed all but one of of Fussell’s previous five albums:
- What in the Natural World
- Out of Sight
- Good and Green Again
- When I’m Called
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