There is a song on Jackie Greene’s new album Giving Up the Ghost that sounds like an outright dismissal of the first commandment of rock’n’roll — that music can change the world.
In I Don’t Live in a Dream, the San Francisco Bay Area singer and songwriter, considered by some an heir to the Gram Parsons roots-rock maverick tradition, confesses: “I don’t live on the Moon ... I don’t live in some land forgotten ... I don’t pretend to make the world feel better ... I walk the same Earth you do, I live right here with you.”
It is a reflection of the way the 27-year-old musician has come to see himself. He is more a regular Joe than the Next Big Thing in pop music, something that has been predicted for him routinely for at least five years.
“I think every record I’ve put out, there has been somebody who’s said: ‘This is it — this is the one!’ After a while you stop listening and do what you do,” said Greene recently while backstage at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles before a performance in his side gig as lead singer in Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh’s touring band.
“It’s too easy to be let down,” he said, “and that’s not what it’s about anyway. Whether this album does well or [not], I’ll make another one.
There’s a buzz and that helps the shows sell out. But it’s not the final word on the record.”
Nor, for that matter, on a latent rock star. Greene seems quite content to continue, for the time being, living the life of a critic’s darling with a devoted cult following.
Following the release of Giving Up the Ghost, Greene spent most of April touring clubs with his own band.
In May, he resumed his role in Lesh’s Dead-heavy four-hour concerts. Lesh discovered Greene’s music on the radio and was sufficiently motivated to track him down.It is an unlikely gig even for this classic-rock omnivore.
“I have a lot of different influences,” he said, “but to be honest, the Grateful Dead wasn’t one of them. Since I’ve started learning these songs a lot, I’ve fallen in love with a great many of them.”
He added: “In a sense, that helps make them new again. I’m out there in front of thousands of people singing these songs and I’m probably the one who knows them the least,” he said.“It’s scary and daunting but it’s also new. That’s exciting.”
His own music covers a lot of ground, from the Coldplay-with-a twang of the single Shaken, to the Neil Young and Crazy Horse rock grandeur of Animal, to the country soul of Don’t Let the Devil Take Your Mind. Another Love Gone Bad comes off like a lost Dead track.
His soft-edged tenor can evince spiritual elegy or ramp up to a rock growl. As a lyricist, Greene isn’t afraid to evoke mythic America.
In the new Uphill Mountain, he drops powerful names, real and fictional, in an ode to honouring one’s noble predecessors and their ideals.
His songwriting acumen has earned him a place alongside such celebrated contemporaries as Ryan Adams, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Jack White.
And he is not one of those indie rockers to whom the thought of a hit record equals “sellout”.
“Who wouldn’t want one — why lie about it?” he said. “I’m not interested in trying to manufacture a hit, but yes, it’s something I do want.”
Greene grew up in Cameron Park, California, east of Sacramento, one of four children in his family.
As a bored 14-year-old with no TV, he wandered down into the basement of his parents’ house and discovered their vinyl LPs.
The first one he put on was The Genius of Ray Charles, an album about which he says: “I can’t get over it to this day.”
As much as he loves hearing — and making — records, it is playing in front of audiences that Greene seems to crave most.
“In my opinion, the best way to experience music is live — I think that’s music in its most pure form,” he said. “That’s one of the things that makes music really cool.”
Now the more he plays, whether with his band or Lesh’s, while also trying to squeeze in recording sessions on days off, the more he finds he is “learning to take better care” of himself.
He has impressed those around him with his passion, commitment and reliability, qualities that don’t always go hand in hand with rock stardom.
Friend and musician Tim Bluhm, of San Francisco’s the Mother Hips, recently told an interviewer: “He is probably the most dedicated musician I have ever met. He lives and breathes music and dreams about it when he sleeps, which isn’t often.”
Marty DeAnda, his manager of five years, said: “All the things that are happening right now are because he has such a great work ethic. If anybody can pull this off, Greene can.”
