LINDI ORTEGA & JACK BARKSDALE PARTNER FOR TWO TOM WAITS COVERS
“HOW’S IT GONNA END” & “YESTERDAY IS HERE” AVAILABLE NOW
“Why Tom Waits? The better question is ‘Why not Tom Waits?’,” states Jack Barksdale. “His songs are really fun to cover, and you can’t really play them like Tom Waits does, so you’re pretty much forced to make them your own.” Listen to their charming renditions of Tom Waits’ memorable tunes, “How’s It Gonna End” and “Yesterday Is Here”, and it’s hard to believe that Lindi Ortega and Jack Barksdale haven’t been performing together for years.
Ortega, a celebrated roots noir artist, and Barksdale, a roots music wunderkind, met up for this unique collaboration through their mutual friend, Grammy Award nominated multi-instrumentalist/producer Mike Meadows (Willie Nelson, Shawn Colvin, Hayes Carll). When Meadows brought Jack in to play some slide on Lindi’s upcoming record, as she describes it, “Mike noticed a similar thread of commonality in our mutual love of the same artists and the dark subject matter of our songs,” leading her and Meadows to the idea that she and Barksdale should cover Tom Waits tunes together. She picked “How’s It Gonna End” because “it’s super eerie and creepy, and so am I,” quipped Ortega. Barksdale went with one of his favorite Waits numbers, “Yesterday Is Here”, which he felt paired well with Ortega’s selection.
Ortega and Barksdale’s shared love for Tom Waits music arose somewhat serendipitously. Ortega recalls how, years ago, she was randomly given a tape of Waits’ Mule Variations and was knocked out by how amazing the album’s songs were. “I find his words and music transport me to a place that feels like I’ve been there before, and it’s haunted,” she elaborates. “It feels like a myriad of ghosts are drunk, dancing in the ache of non-existence.” Watching Waits’ Austin City Limits performance on YouTube one night was Barksdale’s introduction to Waits, and he has been listening to him ever since. “Discovering each album is like discovering a new artist; every time, it feels just as magical,” he shares. “The biggest thing I’ve learned from Tom Waits is that art doesn’t have to be pretty or perfect to be beautiful.”
The videos created for each song wonderfully reflect the mood that Ortega and Barksdale create in their performances. The pair will be announcing a run of co-headlining dates soon.
MORE ABOUT LINDI ORTEGA
The Canadian singer/songwriter burst upon the Americana scene in the early 2010s with the release of JUNO Award nominated “Little Red Boots” and its follow-up, “Cigarettes & Truckstops”, which earned her Canadian Country Music Associations Awards. Described by Rolling Stone Country as “impossible to ignore,” Ortega’s eclectic twangy sound continued to earn her accolades for the releases to follow, “Tin Star and Faded Gloryville”. Her last full-length album, Liberty, was characterized by BBC News as “a musical movie noir” and heralded by the NY Times as having “ample echoes of Enno Morricone, Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton.” After taking some time away from music, 2024 is shaping to be a big year for Ortega. In the spring she released a duet tune with folk singer Tennyson King, and Ortega has been working with Mike Meadows on an upcoming album to be released in the fall leading up to her return to Americana Fest.
MORE ABOUT JACK BARKSDALE
The Fort Worth, Texas native may only be in his teens, but he has already impacted the music world. He was only 11 when he recorded his first album, Live From Niles City, and just 14 when he released his first studio album, 2022’s Death of a Hummingbird. NPR has raved that “Jack Barksdale is special,” and American Songwriter proclaimed, “Barksdale has insights and awareness far beyond people twice his age and he’s able to put them into songs that touch listeners.” Barksdale continues to record music at an impressively prolific pace. In 2023, he released a seven-track instrumental EP, Phantom Trails, with Mike Meadows, who also produced Hummingbird.
Lindi Ortega & Jack Barksdale
[Singles]
(Independent)
Release Date: July 12, 2024
Artist Links
SPILL NEW MUSIC: LINDI ORTEGA ANNOUNCES ‘LIBERTY: PIANO SONGBOOK’ + SHARES NEW TRACK “IN THE CLEAR”
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