The Sound Vault - Bill Jackson

Bill Jackson		Visit: www.myspace.com/billjacksonmusic
Steel and Bone Cat# SV0607
Track Listing 1. Red Sandy Bed 2. John Lee Hooker 3. Bring 'Em On Home 4. Long Way from Water 5. You Evil Bitch Morphine 6. So Long 7. Old Fashioned Gal 8. Tex (Steel and Bone) 9. The Passion 10. God Botherin' Blues #7 11. Bobby Crockett's Island	Red Sandy Bed A song written by a friend of mine - Peter Cole who is a very well known artist/sculptor in Australia. A song about the feelings you have when you 'run away' from a bad relationship and seek total solace in the desert only to be haunted by that desolation and beauty John Lee Hooker Co-written with the same Peter Cole - pays homage to one of the greats. He may be gone but his legacy never will be Bring 'Em On Home Co-written with my brother Ross Jackson (an ex Vietnam Vet). A call to stop the madness and bring the boys and girls home from a fight that does not exist. Long Way from Water Autobiographical song which takes an honest look at my childhood - growing up in a small country town in Gippsland. You Evil Bitch Morphine A song about addiction to a drug which is designed to ease the pain only to inflict more. Written with my brother Ross Jackson… 'I got a window full of setting sun - one more shit day gone…' So Long Three seemingly unrelated verses that hang together with the chorus - one of Bill's 'live' favourites. You gotta listen as the explanation is born out in the lyric - about love. Power and music. Old Fashioned Gal Written for a friend of mine who rescued me at a time when I was as about as low as I could be. Tex (Steel and Bone) Modern Gunfighter Ballad with a lesson to be learned - cattle, gambling, women and fate. The Passion A song about four close friends of mine with one thing in common - passion for their life and art - a personal favorite. God Botherin' Blues #7 'Tongue in cheek' look at those Sunday morning door knockers. This time they knock on the door of the devil himself and the sermon is in the other direction. Bobby Crockett's Island Written with my brother Ross Jackson this is a crowd favorite - tells the true story of a young boy who goes off to Vietnam on 'blind adventure' - will we ever learn?
Review	Melbourne singer-songwriter Bill Jackson proves on his second solo disc ‘Steel + Bone’ that his soulful country is more substance than style. And it’s not just because he cloaks his vibrant vignettes in an accessible aural bed of mandolin, banjo, dobro and lap steel. Jackson delves into the collateral damage of violence - the album title is taken from the jail cell and new home of the Oedipal killer in ‘Tex’. Once again he strip-mines his rural roots in the embryonic Gippsland mariner’s tale ‘Bobby Crockett’s Island’ - one of three powerful anti-war songs and he also uses a Wonthaggi dance floor encounter to contrast love and war in So Long - a sibling song of the social comment of ‘Bring ‘Em On Home’. Jackson also kicks hard with haunting paternal paean ‘Long Way From Water’ and sympathy for fallen peers in the vitriolic ‘You Evil Bitch Morphine’ The singer exploits diverse shades of love for a long time partner in ‘Old Fashioned Gal’ and the artistic desire of an eclectic cast in ‘The Passion’. John Lee Hooker, who died at 83 on June 21, 2001, shortly after being awarded his fifth Grammy was featured in Lucy’s Life on previous disc ‘Diggin' the Roots’ but earns an entire song here. If this all sounds a little too serious check out the role reversal practised by the homeowner in ‘God Botherin’ Blues’ - Dave Dawson, Beat Magazine 2008

Diggin' The Roots Cat# SV0528 Barcode
Track Listing 1. Lucy's life 2. Ghost in a limousine 3. Lucky when I left 4. Enigma 5. Hobohemia 6. Hole in the chicken wire 7. Settlement road 8. Who's the dancer	From the snowbound streets of Nashville and the smoky bars of Austin to the Tapas Bars of Andalucia and the Troubador in London, Bill Jackson has been documenting his stories in song out on the fringes of Melbourne's music scene for what must seem like forever to him. He remembers sitting in a publisher's office on Music City Row and thinking…maybe this is it…but that was a long time ago and it wasn't… He remembers rubbing shoulders with Willis Alan Ramsay, Don Schlitz and Lee Clayton in those dirty Nashville writers' dives and slumping into his bed at the Sir John Robertson Hotel next to the old Ryman Auditorium - wondering if the right lines and melody would ever materialise…maybe they have but you weren't listening… He remembers The Hole in the Wall and Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin and how it inspired him in that city of eclectic musical freaks…how he just had to get out of London…chilled him to the bone and froze his writer's pen… He remembers the characters, friends, artists and lovers who have shaped his life and…he remembers how Bob changed his life with the crack of a snare and a big Hammond Organ - sixty ideas in three minutes…how he helped him understand Woody, Ramblin' Jack, Cisco, Big Bill and a thousand others who gave us a legacy and a belief in doing… He treasures a group of artist's on our South East Coast who called themselves Lonesome Rex by night and produce statements of artistic beauty by day…listened to his songs…kept taking him back to his roots…to a simplicity in structure - complexity was in the heart of the beholders they said…he shared their food, wine, stories, good humour and visions… Through it all he kept on writing and recording - four albums with Urban Nomads and 'The Hurting Sessions' with Mark McSherry - never really taking it out there…internalising his passion…writing…writing…and now…	It's all come down to this…Bill Jackson doing it for himself - always believing that the 'process far outweighs the end result'…then turning an emotional full circle and producing an album full of the rich stuff that we could hang our hats on and just maybe need to hear. You will find yourself somewhere in one of his songs…just maybe he was watching you… You will love what producer Marcel Yammouni has done with these Jackson songs. You will love the playing of the BigRhythm - Shannon Bourne, Bruce Haymes, Daniel Xuerub, Damien Boyd and Marcel Yammouni - they come at it from the core of the lyric and out into your favourite space … check it out and Dig Your Roots….. coming soon!