Life is good for Jason Ringenberg these days. After 20 years in the music
business he now owns his own label " Courageous Chicken" and proudly
releases A POCKETFUL OF SOUL, a solo down home acoustic cd that showcases
his best talent, songwriting. Its been a long and storied road getting here,
but well worth the wait both for himself and his fans.
As the founding member of Jason and the Scorchers, Ringenberg
has earned his reputation the hard way by releasing eight
records with The Scorchers and one previous solo country
record, and by performing too many sweaty barnburning shows
to remember. In fact a music pundit once called him
"Nashville's youngest legend". Ringenberg moved to
Music City from the prairies of Illinois July 4, 1981. His
heritage to that point was shaped by his almost Norman
Rockwell upbringing on his ancestral family hog farm that
bordered on the Rock Island Line Railroad tracks. He wrote
his first song, "Summer on the Farm", at five and
was always singing, acting in school plays, and generally
drawn to the creative side of living. Jason: "I loved
the farm life and atmosphere but I always felt drawn beyond
that world to something over the horizon. Other kids were
playing football and hanging out at McDonalds while I was
driving the backroads listening to Bob Dylan and Hank
Williams Sr. To this day I remember how good that music
sounded filtering out over the Illinois cornfields." The
memories and experiences of those years were to inspire and
carry him through some good and hard times ahead.
When he left for Nashville he "wanted to create a music
built upon folk, traditional country, and rockabilly but
driven by modem punk rock energy." In Illinois he had
somehow heard the first wave of English and American punk
rock and felt almost obsessed to combine the seemingly
incompatible energies together. He immediately met Jack
Emerson, a like-minded soul who was to become a major music
business force in Americana music. [He now co-owns E-Squared
Records with Steve Earle.) They decided to make a band with a
few of Emerson's pals and christened it Jason and the
Nashville Scorchers. Emerson scored them gigs opening for
Carl Perkins and REM [then a fledgling club band]. Those
gigs generated wild talk in Nashville's underground this new
crazy kid in town. Two pillars of that underground Jeff
Johnson and Warner Hodges approached Jason offering to join
the party and everything took off. Emerson moved over to
managing the band and Hodges brought in his friend Perry
Baggs to play drums. By the end of that year they recorded
and released RECKLESS COUNTRY SOUL. Their landmark mini-lp
FERVOR followed in 1983. That garnered them EP of the Year
honors from the NY Times and Village Voice. Even today that
record is still talked about as a pioneering landmark among
aficionados of country based rock and roll. In fact it is
featured both in JIMMY GUTERMAN'S ROLLING STONE GUIDE TO THE
100 GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL RECORDS and THE COUNTRY MUSIC
ASSOCIATION'S 100 GREATEST COUNTRY RECORDS. Most artists
would be delighted to be in one of those books let alone
both!!
The band played continuously throughout the 80's winning
lifelong fans with their Jerry Lee Lewis meets The Ramones
apocalyptic country rock and roll celebrations. England's
New Musical Express called their London 1984 Marquee Club
appearance "one of the Top 5 gigs of all time".
1985's LOST AND FOUND was close to FERVOR in impact and fan
base building and 1986's STILL STANDING even scored them a
rock hit with "Golden Ball and Chain". However as
the decade wore on the band's music slowly lost some of
Jason's roots influences to be replaced by heavy rock glitter
and excess. In early 1990 the band broke up.
1991 saw Jason without a band or record contract. He decided to make a Nashville country record. "It seemed like a good move at the time. My writing was in a slump Capitol Nashville wanted to give me a try as a country singer. It was a nice place to visit but I didn't really belong in the commercial country world. " He left Capitol after one record ONE FOOT IN THE HONKY TONK and consented to help reform The Scorchers. The reunited band produced two more studio efforts A BLAZING GRACE in 1995 [which featured the alternative hit of their demolition of John Denver's "Country Roads"], CLEAR IMPETUOUS MORNING in 1996 which critics hailed as their best work of the 90's, and the live cd MIDNIGHT ROADS AND STAGES SEEN in 1998, which garnered them a performance on LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN that many of their fans consider the band's finest moment.
Which brings us to the new project A POCKETFUL OF SOUL. As Jason says: "Jason and the Scorchers has not broken up. We still do live dates occasionally but concerning recording we are definitely on an extended hiatus. I have felt drawn to do an acoustic folkabilly record for some time now and this seemed like a good time to pursue that." He spent 1999 concentrating on his songwriting and reestablishing his connections to the Americana roots of his youth. When it was time to record he opted avoid the slick uptown studios\ record companies and decided to fund and co produce the project himself with the help of Nashville underground icon George Bradfute. They recorded it in George's circa 1890 house/studio, a vintage musical funhouse where you might have to move a 1952 Gibson to sit down on the couch! There were lots of one take live keepers with Jason laying down the rhythm guitar while singing the lead and George coming behind him with an eccentric array of folk instruments.
The results of their efforts work beyond what even Jason expected. "I really we would make a record that I would play for my family and friends and maybe give it to some indie label to release. Now its out all over the world on my very own company and folks are saying it's the best batch of songs and performances I've been a part of in a long time. It's a wonderful thing when you surpass your expectations. Usually it's the other way around in this music world"
As Peter Cooper in THE TENNESSEAN wrote: Jason Ringenberg is Nashville's most electrifying performer, but his most enduring attribute -songwriting- is also his most criminally overlooked." Definitely his songwriting finally takes center stage on A POCKETFUL OF SOUL. The record opens with an ode to Jason's ancestral home
"Oh Lonesome Prairie", a song Jason "has needed to write for 20 years." The cover Johnny Horton's "Whispering Pines" sounds like it comes straight out of the Appalachians thanks to Fats Kaplin's subtle and understated twin fiddles. Another highlight is "Under Your Command", an acoustic gospel number with a decidedly modem twist on salvation and the difficulty getting there. Ringenberg even sings an ode to his daughter "For Addie Rose". In a less talented songwriter's hands a song like this might be a borderline embarrassment but Ringenberg succeeds in making the listener a living part of the moment. "The Price of Progress" tells of a depression era farmer who refuses to leave his home when a TVA dam threatens to flood his valley.
Deep in the record "Last of the Neon Cowboys" [co written with Kevin Welch] shows an old country singer who didn't sell his soul or records but pined something much more valuable than fame, an ability to time and again connect with his own music and listeners. Jason Ringenberg has a lot in common with that character.
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