Reviews for Jody
"The feeling one gets upon listening to Come & Gone is that of shaking off restrictions and inhibitions...like opening a door to a new perspective, a new day." --Ellen Geisel, Driftwood Magazine
"In a town crowded with earnest folk artists, Jody Blackwell's playful interweaving of jazz elements, subtle sassiness, and her poet's eye for imagery make her just a little bit different." - David Wildman, The Boston Globe
Press Sheet
Wilderness - Press/Radio Sheet (pdf)
Long Bio (253 words)
Born and raised in the South Carolina Appalachians, Jody Blackwell grew up in a house filled with many musical genres, from her brother's R& B vinyl 45's and the family's Joni Mitchell albums, to the Appalachian hymns that her dad, a religion professor, would play on the piano at night. Jody picked up guitar in high school, a pastime which grew into a calling during her college years at Brown where she formed her first band and honed her open-tuning, jazz-inflected style of songwriting in East Providence bars at night.
Having put down roots in Boston after college, she began playing in the subways and coffeehouses around Cambridge, MA, including the venerable Club Passim, and recorded her first solo acoustic CD Volcano in 1996, the first of four records she has independently released since moving to the Boston area. Jody claims both the north and southeast U.S. as home in her songwriting, invoking with equal intimacy the sunlit rapids of a beloved creek in rural South Carolina, or the story of a refugee newly arrived at the Boston agency where she has worked as an English teacher.
Her fifth and latest album, Wilderness, is an R&B-inspired collection of tunes exploring the tangled and mysterious jungle of human connections in a city. Backed by some of Boston's best jazz and R&B players, and infused with the retro warmth of tube amplifiers, hammond B3 organ, and soulful harmonies, Wilderness weaves together folk, pop, jazz, and R&B into a groove-oriented, danceable blend of American roots music.
Short Bio (92 words)
Born into a musical family in the South Carolina Appalachians, Jody began her career playing her jazz-inflected songwriting in the subways and coffeehouses around Cambridge, MA, recording her first solo acoustic CD Volcano in 1996. Branching out into pop and blues over the years, her fifth and latest album, Wilderness, is an R&B-inspired collection of tunes exploring the mysterious jungle of human connections in a city. With the retro warmth of tube amplifiers, hammond b3 organ, and soulful harmonies, Wilderness weaves together folk, pop, jazz, and R&B into a groove-oriented, danceable trip.
