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j.tex Biography
Had Tom Waits gone in a country music direction back in his early days this recording would in all probability be his new album, such is the generally quirky feel and the (slightly!) smoothed out vocals of J. Tex! An odd comparison as well as an over simplification but there are slight whispers of Waits, although there is a lot more to this album of music that has to be categorized as country, but a strange highly original, cleverly constructed and loose take on the genre.
The band is made up of Jens Einer Sørensen (J.Tex) on vocals, guitar, banjo and violin, whilst the ‘Volunteers’ are Ida Hvid on bass and Jason Bedard on Drums. Sorensen was born in Detroit, Michigan but grew up in Denmark and he returned to the US at the age of 20, eventually returning to Copenhagen where he and the other two members of the trio now live. There are twelve songs on this quirky but excellent album of which seven are J. Tex originals, one of which is an instrumental, and the remaining five are‘covers’ of one traditional instrumental, plus songs by Steve Earle, Lowell George, Danny Dil/Mel Tillis and another by Johnny Cash. I say covers but this unusual trio do
their level best to not exactly make them unrecognizable but to adapt them to their own idiosyncratic style that it’s safe to say is unlike anyone else I can think of!
All of the songs are played and sung in a slow tempo but there are always a lot of interesting diversions going on with the instrumentation, vocals and in many cases the lyrics. First track on the album is a case in point and gives a fair indication of the entertaining quirkiness that is to follow. It is a Tex original with an addictive percussive opening that wouldn’t disgrace Tom Waits, similarly the vocals. The song is a dark murder and execution ballad with some nice banjo and a chunky percussive guitar with a nice strong double bass thump, all combining to give a unique atmosphere. This is followed by another unusual song in Home On The Hill, another entertaining tale from the pen of Tex and a lovely sparse story of loneliness that has an arid desert feel, almost like a scene from a spaghetti western, with nice bass thrum plus acoustic guitar, occasional harmonica and shaker, even including alto sax towards the end! The sax, coming in late as it does, seems to deepen the darkness of the song. Look Up Look Down has an incredibly twangy electric guitar, repetitive drum
sound and nice heavy bass on another tale of loneliness that this time he hopes is coming to an end, followed a couple of songs later by a complete departure, although still recognizably this talented band. It is Carnival Girl, with it’s nice barrelhouse piano and sax intro/interlude with acoustic guitar and harmonica on a really cleverly constructed tale of his beloved that in many ways evokes the carnival atmosphere of old. A strange, quite sinister feeling song. There is some real foot tapping percussion and bass, later helped by sax on a story of a Coalminers Daughter that has little in common with the Loretta Lynne classic but is still a quirkily riveting story that is almost impossible to tie down to any genre, particularly with the sax going off in a different direction. The best of the covers are an extraordinary version of Lowell George’s Willin’ and Steve Earle’s, just as extraordinary, Ben McCulloch. I’m pretty sure these two esteemed writers never envisaged this treatment of their songs but just as sure they would have enjoyed this slightly different treatment. The album closes with the two instrumentals, the traditional I Always Knew You Were TheOne, with it’s lovely accordion lead, accompanied by fiddle and bass and Tex’s Ukulele Lullaby that is summed up by the title.
This is an album I keep returning to thanks to the originality that the band brings to their music and despite the ‘quirkiness’ it is a recording of great skill and musicality that really is
a country album, albeit one that is closer to the boundary than it is the mainstream and long may they continue ploughing their own furrow!
REVIEW Nov 2012 MIKE MORRISON - AMRRICANROOTSUK.COM
On April 9, 1860, the French inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville used a device he’d created—called the phonautograph, which etches waveforms onto paper—to make the first audio recording. It makes for an interesting story because this recording—a less-than-crystal-clear rendition of “Claire de la Lune”—remained unheard until just a couple of years ago when someone finally figured out how to use a computer to decipher the recording Scott de Martinville created and turn it into audio so we could listen to it.
This story also goes against the common wisdom that it was Thomas Alva Edison who created the first recording with a rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in 1877. Edison’s was the first recording ever to be successfully played back and heard.
So, all this is very interesting for certain, but what does it have to do with J. Tex & The Volunteers’ latest CD House On the Hill? Well, stay with me here…between these two landmark recording events, another highly significant historical event took place: The American Civil War. And (here’s where I finally get around to the connection) if recordings had been made of American music during the Civil War years, my guess is they would have sounded a lot like House On The Hill.
This is a superlative record. It’s simultaneously beautiful in its simplicity and head turning in its complexity. To me, this record evokes images of rebel soldiers sitting around the campfire in a rare moment of leisure singing along to sparse accompaniment on simple instruments. This record is roots music in its most base form. And yet, it’s not. It’s more complex than that. I don’t know how the band pulls such a dichotomy off, but they do so with amazing success.
J. Tex & The Volunteers are Jens Einer Sørensen on vocals, guitar, banjo, and violin, Ida Hvid on Bass, and Jason Bedford on Drums. The trio is joined by a host of guest musicians lending their talents on various other instruments. Now, if you think that a couple of those names don’t exactly sound like the names of soldiers from the Confederate States that were attempting to succeed from the American union, well you’re right. The band is based in Denmark which makes their uncanny synchronicity with American roots music even more amazing. They do have their American roots though as they come originally from Detroit, Michigan.
What? Detroit? Well, for those of you who don’t know your American geography (and sadly, I’m probably speaking mostly to Americans now!), Detroit is a northern city. So really, any way you look at it, it’s a bit of a puzzle to figure out how this band developed this deep southern feel, but they’ve got it nailed, that’s for sure.
There’s a mixture of cover and original tunes (written by Einer Sørensen) on this record, but even the cover tunes are largely original in their delivery and stylization. For instance, the band covers the Johnny Cash classic “I Still Miss Someone,” a song that’s already about as roots as it gets. But Einer Sørensen takes the song and almost completely rewrites the melody so that it sounds even more roots. The band gives similar treatment to Steve Earl’s masterpiece, “Ben McCulloch” making it even more roots than Earl’s original. Again, I don’t know how these guys do it, but it’s quite impressive and I’m glad they do!
It’s that song, “Ben McColloch,” that most evokes the Civil War since that’s the theme of the song, but I think I’d get that Civil War feeling from this record even if that song wasn’t on it.
The arrangements of these songs are mostly subtle and understated with mostly traditional, acoustic instruments. But here things get even more interesting because the band takes a few lessons from artists like Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen by throwing a few unexpected instruments into the mix here and there. Electronic instruments with names such as Omnichord, Optigan, and Mellotron, clarinets, bass clarinets, bongos, Ukulele, Moog synthesizers, kalimbas, drum machines…all of these decisively non-traditional-roots instruments make their appearances on the record. And if you think that sounds like a crazy list, here’s the really crazy part: every last one of them fits this record perfectly. Again, I don’t know how these guys did it, but it works. It’s truly amazing really.
As for the songs themselves, I have my favorites and I guess I have a couple that are not my favorites. But there’s not a bad song on this disc. And the strong songs are simply outstanding. “The Ballad of My Brother & Me” kicks the record off and it’s a great first cut. It’s ragged and unpolished and it perfectly sets the tone for what you’ll hear on the rest of the record. “Home On The Hill,” “Look Up Look Down,” and on down the list—this is a great display of songwriting talent.
If this record has a signature, it’s the treatment they’ve chosen to give Einer Sørensen’s vocals. To being with, he has a rough voice which you wouldn’t necessarily call pretty, but it’s perfectly suited to this music. Then, they had him either sing through a low-quality microphone, or they added distortion and subtracted definition and clarity from the sound in post production. This treatment brilliantly lends authenticity to the old-time feel of the music. In these days of modern digital, perfectly clean recording techniques, it’s a gutsy and brilliant move to purposely degrade the quality of the vocal recordings. It as much as anything else about this record puts you in that old-time roots music space and once you’re there, you never once leave until the record’s over.
House On The Hill is the third record from J. Tex & The Volunteers and it’s out on Sweden’s Heptown Records. Heptown has definitely become one of my favorite record labels. I’ve reviewed several of their releases including projects from Astrolites, Duck and Cover, The Troubled Three, and The Creamators and invariably they’ve all been really fine records. Heptown has a truly impressive feel for roots and rockabilly music and they know how to pick their bands. J. Tex & The Volunteers is another great Heptown act. And House On The Hill is definitely a record that you’ll want to check out. To be clear, it’s not rockabilly, but it’s great roots music and I highly recommend that you give it a listen!
BY Buster Fayte
Buster Fayte is an author and musician who enjoys sharing his love for rockabilly music with readers throughout the world.
Read MoreThe band is made up of Jens Einer Sørensen (J.Tex) on vocals, guitar, banjo and violin, whilst the ‘Volunteers’ are Ida Hvid on bass and Jason Bedard on Drums. Sorensen was born in Detroit, Michigan but grew up in Denmark and he returned to the US at the age of 20, eventually returning to Copenhagen where he and the other two members of the trio now live. There are twelve songs on this quirky but excellent album of which seven are J. Tex originals, one of which is an instrumental, and the remaining five are‘covers’ of one traditional instrumental, plus songs by Steve Earle, Lowell George, Danny Dil/Mel Tillis and another by Johnny Cash. I say covers but this unusual trio do
their level best to not exactly make them unrecognizable but to adapt them to their own idiosyncratic style that it’s safe to say is unlike anyone else I can think of!
All of the songs are played and sung in a slow tempo but there are always a lot of interesting diversions going on with the instrumentation, vocals and in many cases the lyrics. First track on the album is a case in point and gives a fair indication of the entertaining quirkiness that is to follow. It is a Tex original with an addictive percussive opening that wouldn’t disgrace Tom Waits, similarly the vocals. The song is a dark murder and execution ballad with some nice banjo and a chunky percussive guitar with a nice strong double bass thump, all combining to give a unique atmosphere. This is followed by another unusual song in Home On The Hill, another entertaining tale from the pen of Tex and a lovely sparse story of loneliness that has an arid desert feel, almost like a scene from a spaghetti western, with nice bass thrum plus acoustic guitar, occasional harmonica and shaker, even including alto sax towards the end! The sax, coming in late as it does, seems to deepen the darkness of the song. Look Up Look Down has an incredibly twangy electric guitar, repetitive drum
sound and nice heavy bass on another tale of loneliness that this time he hopes is coming to an end, followed a couple of songs later by a complete departure, although still recognizably this talented band. It is Carnival Girl, with it’s nice barrelhouse piano and sax intro/interlude with acoustic guitar and harmonica on a really cleverly constructed tale of his beloved that in many ways evokes the carnival atmosphere of old. A strange, quite sinister feeling song. There is some real foot tapping percussion and bass, later helped by sax on a story of a Coalminers Daughter that has little in common with the Loretta Lynne classic but is still a quirkily riveting story that is almost impossible to tie down to any genre, particularly with the sax going off in a different direction. The best of the covers are an extraordinary version of Lowell George’s Willin’ and Steve Earle’s, just as extraordinary, Ben McCulloch. I’m pretty sure these two esteemed writers never envisaged this treatment of their songs but just as sure they would have enjoyed this slightly different treatment. The album closes with the two instrumentals, the traditional I Always Knew You Were TheOne, with it’s lovely accordion lead, accompanied by fiddle and bass and Tex’s Ukulele Lullaby that is summed up by the title.
This is an album I keep returning to thanks to the originality that the band brings to their music and despite the ‘quirkiness’ it is a recording of great skill and musicality that really is
a country album, albeit one that is closer to the boundary than it is the mainstream and long may they continue ploughing their own furrow!
REVIEW Nov 2012 MIKE MORRISON - AMRRICANROOTSUK.COM
On April 9, 1860, the French inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville used a device he’d created—called the phonautograph, which etches waveforms onto paper—to make the first audio recording. It makes for an interesting story because this recording—a less-than-crystal-clear rendition of “Claire de la Lune”—remained unheard until just a couple of years ago when someone finally figured out how to use a computer to decipher the recording Scott de Martinville created and turn it into audio so we could listen to it.
This story also goes against the common wisdom that it was Thomas Alva Edison who created the first recording with a rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in 1877. Edison’s was the first recording ever to be successfully played back and heard.
So, all this is very interesting for certain, but what does it have to do with J. Tex & The Volunteers’ latest CD House On the Hill? Well, stay with me here…between these two landmark recording events, another highly significant historical event took place: The American Civil War. And (here’s where I finally get around to the connection) if recordings had been made of American music during the Civil War years, my guess is they would have sounded a lot like House On The Hill.
This is a superlative record. It’s simultaneously beautiful in its simplicity and head turning in its complexity. To me, this record evokes images of rebel soldiers sitting around the campfire in a rare moment of leisure singing along to sparse accompaniment on simple instruments. This record is roots music in its most base form. And yet, it’s not. It’s more complex than that. I don’t know how the band pulls such a dichotomy off, but they do so with amazing success.
J. Tex & The Volunteers are Jens Einer Sørensen on vocals, guitar, banjo, and violin, Ida Hvid on Bass, and Jason Bedford on Drums. The trio is joined by a host of guest musicians lending their talents on various other instruments. Now, if you think that a couple of those names don’t exactly sound like the names of soldiers from the Confederate States that were attempting to succeed from the American union, well you’re right. The band is based in Denmark which makes their uncanny synchronicity with American roots music even more amazing. They do have their American roots though as they come originally from Detroit, Michigan.
What? Detroit? Well, for those of you who don’t know your American geography (and sadly, I’m probably speaking mostly to Americans now!), Detroit is a northern city. So really, any way you look at it, it’s a bit of a puzzle to figure out how this band developed this deep southern feel, but they’ve got it nailed, that’s for sure.
There’s a mixture of cover and original tunes (written by Einer Sørensen) on this record, but even the cover tunes are largely original in their delivery and stylization. For instance, the band covers the Johnny Cash classic “I Still Miss Someone,” a song that’s already about as roots as it gets. But Einer Sørensen takes the song and almost completely rewrites the melody so that it sounds even more roots. The band gives similar treatment to Steve Earl’s masterpiece, “Ben McCulloch” making it even more roots than Earl’s original. Again, I don’t know how these guys do it, but it’s quite impressive and I’m glad they do!
It’s that song, “Ben McColloch,” that most evokes the Civil War since that’s the theme of the song, but I think I’d get that Civil War feeling from this record even if that song wasn’t on it.
The arrangements of these songs are mostly subtle and understated with mostly traditional, acoustic instruments. But here things get even more interesting because the band takes a few lessons from artists like Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen by throwing a few unexpected instruments into the mix here and there. Electronic instruments with names such as Omnichord, Optigan, and Mellotron, clarinets, bass clarinets, bongos, Ukulele, Moog synthesizers, kalimbas, drum machines…all of these decisively non-traditional-roots instruments make their appearances on the record. And if you think that sounds like a crazy list, here’s the really crazy part: every last one of them fits this record perfectly. Again, I don’t know how these guys did it, but it works. It’s truly amazing really.
As for the songs themselves, I have my favorites and I guess I have a couple that are not my favorites. But there’s not a bad song on this disc. And the strong songs are simply outstanding. “The Ballad of My Brother & Me” kicks the record off and it’s a great first cut. It’s ragged and unpolished and it perfectly sets the tone for what you’ll hear on the rest of the record. “Home On The Hill,” “Look Up Look Down,” and on down the list—this is a great display of songwriting talent.
If this record has a signature, it’s the treatment they’ve chosen to give Einer Sørensen’s vocals. To being with, he has a rough voice which you wouldn’t necessarily call pretty, but it’s perfectly suited to this music. Then, they had him either sing through a low-quality microphone, or they added distortion and subtracted definition and clarity from the sound in post production. This treatment brilliantly lends authenticity to the old-time feel of the music. In these days of modern digital, perfectly clean recording techniques, it’s a gutsy and brilliant move to purposely degrade the quality of the vocal recordings. It as much as anything else about this record puts you in that old-time roots music space and once you’re there, you never once leave until the record’s over.
House On The Hill is the third record from J. Tex & The Volunteers and it’s out on Sweden’s Heptown Records. Heptown has definitely become one of my favorite record labels. I’ve reviewed several of their releases including projects from Astrolites, Duck and Cover, The Troubled Three, and The Creamators and invariably they’ve all been really fine records. Heptown has a truly impressive feel for roots and rockabilly music and they know how to pick their bands. J. Tex & The Volunteers is another great Heptown act. And House On The Hill is definitely a record that you’ll want to check out. To be clear, it’s not rockabilly, but it’s great roots music and I highly recommend that you give it a listen!
BY Buster Fayte
Buster Fayte is an author and musician who enjoys sharing his love for rockabilly music with readers throughout the world.
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