Jake Xerxes Fussell, Raggy Levy (live), San Francisco, April 26, 2022 (4K)

Описание: Jake Xerxes Fussell opens for The Magnetic Fields and plays a cover / reinterpretation of the song "Raggy Levy" live in concert at the Palace Of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco, California on April 26, 2022. Raggy Levy was a slave worksong. Black stevedores would sing it while lifting heavy weights, their pulls timed to the song's pattern. Alan Lomax, an ethnomusicologist, recorded the Georgia Sea Island Singers playing it in 1960. As a kid, Fussell knew the next generation of Sea Island Singers, including Doug & Frankie Quimby, and heard them play this. He released his version on his debut studio album, Jake Xerxes Fussell (2015). Fussell is a singer and guitar player from Durham, North Carolina who adapts and reinterprets traditional blues and Southern folk songs. He opened for The Magnetic Fields on every night of their Spring 2022 Tour, then supported The Decemberists on their Arise From The Bunkers tour, and will do a 12-show European tour this fall.

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Raggy Levy lyrics:

Raggy Levy
Ho oh, do Raggy Levy
Raggy Levy
Oh boy, just ragged as a jaybird

Mr. Sippelin, I'm gonna build me a stone fence

In the mornin'
Ho oh, soon in the mornin'
In the mornin'
When I rise I'm gonna sit by the fire

Mr. Sippelin, I'm gonna build me a stone fence

Sweet potato
Ho oh, sweet potato
Sweet potato
Oh boys, there's two in the fire

Mr. Sippelin, I'm gonna build me a stone fence

Mamma Dinah
Ho oh, do Mamma Dinah
Mamma Dinah
You're too old, gal, and I can't support ya

Mr. Sippelin, I'm gonna build me a stone fence

Horse and buggy
Ho oh, horse and a buggy
Horse and buggy
Oh boys, there's no one to drive em'

Mr. Sippelin, I'm gonna build me a stone fence

Raggy Levy
Ho oh, do Raggy Levy
Raggy Levy
Oh boy, just ragged as a jaybird

Mr. Sippelin, I'm gonna build me a stone fence

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Jake Xerxes Fussell live tour dates (2022):

April 6 - Tarrytown, NY @ Tarrytown Music Hall
April 7 - Northampton, MA @ Calvin Theatre
April 9-10 - Raleigh, NC @ Fletcher Opera Theater
April 11 - Charlottesville, VA @ Paramount Theater
April 13 - Toronto, ON @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
April 15 - Iowa City, IA @ Englert Theatre
April 16 - Saint Paul, MN @ Fitzgerald Theater
April 18 - Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
April 19 - Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
April 20 - Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
April 22 - Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre
April 23 - Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre
April 25-26 - San Francisco, CA @ Palace Of Fine Arts
April 27 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Theatre at Ace Hotel

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Jake Xerxes Fussell official bio:

Singer, guitarist, and folk music interpreter Jake Xerxes Fussell has distinguished himself as one of his generation’s preeminent interpreters of traditional (and not so traditional) “folk” songs, which he approaches with a refreshingly unfussy lack of nostalgia. By re contextualizing ancient vernacular songs and sources of the American South, he lets them breathe and speak for themselves and for himself; he alternately inhabits them and allows them to inhabit him. In all his work, Fussell humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways. The robust burr of his voice, which periodically melts and catches at a particularly tender turn of phrase, and the swung rhythmic undertow of exquisite, seemingly effortless guitar-playing pull new valences of meaning from ostensibly antique songs and subjects.

Fussell’s new album Good and Green Again is set for release in January. Produced by James Elkington, Good and Green Again navigates fresh sonic and compositional landscapes and is his most conceptually focused and breathtakingly rendered to-date. Fussell and Elkington enlisted a group of formidable players hailing from Durham, North Carolina (where Fussell lives) and elsewhere, including regular band members Casey Toll on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel. They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, with additional vocals.

If overall Good and Green Again sounds a little sadder and slower than Fussell’s past records, well, maybe we’re all a little sadder and slower these days. A smoldering mood of regret and loss pervades, a distinct vibe of vanitas. But three airy instrumentals, all Fussell originals, punctuate the program, offering respite and light in the form of crisp, shuffling play-party tunes, each in turn somewhat more hopeful and exuberant than the last. Their resemblance to lullabies is, perhaps, not coincidental. Fussell and his partner welcomed their first child into the world during the making of Good and Green Again. These lovely songs bear that promise in letters of bright gold.















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Typo catcher: Jake Zerxes Fussel, Jake Xerxes Russell, Ragy Levy, Raggy Levee, Ragged Leevy