“If you want to know what gets me through my day . . .”
With that opening line, Jason White invites us in and sets the confidential tone of his latest release The Longing. What gets White, and by extension, the characters that inhabit his rich song vignettes, through their days, is a desire for something beyond the current limits of their lives. They hunger after what’s beautiful, what’s real, and often, what’s nameless and unattainable. They dream of new beginnings. They struggle for answers. They reach for love and fall short, but never quite give up. “Sometimes, even when things are going well in our lives, there’s that nagging feeling that there must be something more,” says White. “There’s always that little voice in your head that says, ‘What if . . . ?’” Three years ago, White’s own what if’s about love, relationships and his career set his creative compass spinning, and he started writing songs for The Longing. There was also the notion to make a record, as White says with a chuckle, “for the ladies.” “My first two records were pretty heavy on the ‘guy rock,’” he says. “A lot of snarling, sarcastic, semi-ironic music. My producer Viktor Krauss and I used to joke about how I should make an album for the ladies. It was kind of a running joke, but I started to take it seriously, because I noticed that the girls I was dating didn’t seem all that interested in my records. They were into gentler stuff like Death Cab For Cutie and Josh Rouse. So I set out to make a record that was more for a female audience.”
With White’s strong acoustic guitar work and honey-on-sandpaper voice front and center, the collection offers up a melodic warmth that recalls 70s-era FM radio titans Elton John, Bread and The Eagles, while still sounding contemporary and completely fresh. And there’s an edge to the softness, a confidence and authority that comes from White’s years of hard-won experience as both an artist and an award-winning songwriter. Born and raised in Cleveland, Jason White started playing guitar when he was seven. By the time he was in junior high, he was writing songs and gigging out with bands. His musical apprenticeship was as colorful as it was dramatic. Cross country touring in a van, an appearance on Star Search, the loss of a musical collaborator to suicide, a record deal turned sour, crooked management, and even a stint living Thoreau-style in a woodsy cabin. Along the way, he released two critically acclaimed albums, Shades of Gray and Tonight’s Top Story. The first yielded a song that would change his life. In 2003, when a Nashville song plugger heard “Red Ragtop” on a local radio station, he brought it to Tim McGraw, who took it to #2 on the country charts. A moving tale of young love, its mention of abortion got it banned on several major stations and stirred up controversy in the national press. All of which helped White’s stock as a songwriter rise on Music Row. While he remains proud of his chart-topper, and still enjoys the challenge of custom-tailoring songs for the country market, years in the Nashville trenches left a void in White’s creative life.
At the beginning of his career, David Mead bounced around the Nashville club scene, in a few bands, before taking the leap as a solo artist. A copper-topped kid with a tender heart and wicked sense of humor, he had one unfailing secret weapon - the kind of singing voice that can stop drunks in mid-drink and A & R guys in mid-schmooze. “A soaring but unshowy falsetto,” says Uncut. “Honeyed and compelling,” adds Entertainment Weekly.
In the early-2000s, Mead signed a major label deal with RCA, former home to Elvis Presley and David Bowie. Aspiring to similar career longevity and variety, Mead locked in for a steady climb. Honing a songwriting gift that improbably takes in Broadway, Beatles, Prog and New Wave, then ups the ante to something all his own, he releases a pair of critically-acclaimed records, The Luxury Of Time and Mine and Yours. “Infectious melodies,” says The Guardian. “A major tunesmith,” affirms MOJO. During the mid-2000s, Mead toured from town to town, meeting crowds sparse or sold-out with equal gusto, leaving true believers in his wake. When he’s not on the road, he’s writing, recording and lending songs to screens big (The Sweetest Thing, Boys and Girls) and small (Ed, Private Practice). He’s making loads of fans and friends. Some of them in high places. John Mayer says, “David Mead is one of my favorite singer-songwriters.” Taylor Swift tweets, “I can’t get David Mead’s ‘Nashville’ out of my head.” Joe Jackson, Fountains Of Wayne, Shelby Lynne, Ron Sexsmith all feel it too, enough to invite Mead to share stages and tours.
In 2011, 253 of Mead’s most-dedicated fans rally around his Kickstarter campaign to raise over $20K to fund his new record Dudes. The yield on the investment? Pure pleasure, with humor, mystery, emotional wallop and dudes of all ages lurking behind a hundred unforgettable hooks. “There is no easy way for me to express the gratitude I feel for all the generous support,” Mead says, “except to try to back it up with what I feel might be my best album to date.”
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