Z2 Entertainment will present JD McPherson with Special Guests at the Fox Theatre tonight, November 14th, 2015. Tickets are on sale now for $18 advanced or $20 day of show.
As a visual artist, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, native JD McPherson is well versed in the process of working within clearly defined formal parameters, and he employs a similarly rigorous discipline with his music. On Signs & Signifiers (Rounder, April 17), McPherson's seductively kickass debut album, produced by JD's musical partner, Jimmy Sutton, this renaissance man/hepcat seamlessly meshes the old and the new, the primal and the sophisticated, on a work that will satisfy traditional American rock 'n' roll and R&B purists while also exhibiting McPherson's rarefied gift for mixing and matching disparate stylistic shapes and textures.
"There are little subcultures within the roots scene, where people are really into rockabilly, traditional hillbilly stuff or old-timey music," JD points out, "but there aren't a whole lot of folks making hard-core rhythm & blues hearkening back to Specialty, Vee-Jay or labels like that. That's what Jimmy and I really like, and our only intention going in was just to make a solid rhythm & blues/rock 'n' roll record. But I didn't want to make a time-machine record, so we tried to make something relevant but with all the things we love about rock 'n' roll and rhythm & blues and mesh it all together. We both have eclectic tastes; Jimmy likes the Clash as much as he likes Little Richard, and I like the Pixies, T.Rex, hip-hop and all kinds of stuff. So we came up with a couple of weird songs and put them on the record, hoping that it wouldn't scare off any of our ultra-selective fanbase."JD has no doubts about the viability of the choice he's made. "Working within a genre has been done in all kinds of mediums-look at Alfred Hitchcock," he points out. "It's been established that rock 'n' roll is a viable form-it's hard-wired into American brains to understand swinging blues stuff. So it's not surprising to me that kids are into the Black Keys and Adele. It just had to be presented to them."
For more information, visit JD McPherson's website at: http://www.jdmcpherson.com/
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