When we think of New York City the images that come to mind are of skyscrapers, Central Park coffee houses, Wall Street, cocktails and manolo blahnik shoes. The images of 10 gallon hats, honky tonks and tumbleweeds seem at odds with the Big Apple images but in recent years New York-native Jack Grace has changed all that. The Village Voice declared: “NYC someday will brag about its great legends of country music and among those names will be the engaging, hardworking, witty, and schmoozing and boozing Grace.” The Martini Cowboy brings his Jack Grace Band to Galway’s Roisin Dubh on Tuesday August 26.
Grace first developed an interest in country music when he lived in Boulder, Colorado, and formed his first band Steak. The group began to draw large audiences in college campuses around the west coast of the US and in 1994 Grace decided to move to San Francisco. However, after a few years he found that he was lonesome for his home in New York and so returned to release his debut solo album introducing The Sounds of Jack Grace. He soon found that the audiences in the Big Apple were really taking to his country-tinged sound.
“I was very surprised by the reaction,” he says. “Actually in Brooklyn there’s been a thriving country scene for many years. There’s probably about half a dozen bars where you can hear country and bluegrass any night of the week. It’s got to the stage where there’s a website www.brooklyncountry.com dedicated to the scene.”
The band that Jack Grace has assembled around him is a rather mixed bunch of travelling musicians who have played with names such as The Crash Test Dummies, Norah Jones, Lucy Wainwright Roche (half-sister of Rufus and Martha ), and God Is My Co-Pilot.
“We all bring a lot of influences into the band from what we’ve heard down through the years,” says Grace. “We’re essentially a whole bunch of weirdos who’ve got together because of our love of country music.”
One of the most integral members of the band is bassist and Jack’s other half: Daria ‘Battleaxe’ Grace. “That’s her nickname on the band website but I can’t get away with calling her that to her face!” says Battleaxe’s husband. “The humour of the band is sort of tongue-in-cheek and I also have a humorous email blog that I send out. There are people who are fans of the band even though they’ve probably never heard any of our music.”
According to the website www.jackgrace.com the actor Burt Reynolds has been a special guest and inspiration throughout the musical process.
“Scheduling conflicts conspired to keep Burt away from the studio when The Martini Cowboy was being recorded. He’s always an inspiration though, and stops in from time to time to amaze Jack’s audiences with a sax solo or show off his prowess with a moonshine jug,” the website declares with pride. Though it seems that any input by the Smokey and the Bandit star is entirely within the realm of Jack Grace’s imagination. “I have these ongoing fictional stories about how I’m really good friends with Burt Reynolds and how he’s joined the band on stage and in the studio from time to time.”
One legendary figure who Grace is a friend of is country music kingpin Merle Haggard. In June 2002 he was invited to open for Haggard and after the soundcheck Haggard shook Grace’s guitar and declared: “Mmm. Feels like there’s a few more songs in this one,” before handing it back to him.
“When I played with him and he signed my guitar a few years back it was one of the greatest moments of my life,” says Grace. “Then I was scheduled to do a whole tour with him but the day before the tour was due to start he cancelled because of health reasons. I opened for Doc Watson too a couple of times and he was a very amazing person.”
Hanging out with these outlaws of the Nashville scene has become second nature to Grace at this stage but in all his years playing he has never been tempted to make his home in Guitar Town.
“I’ve been offered the opportunity to write songs for artists in the Nashville pop/country scene but it sounded really boring to me,” says Grace. “Of course I’d love to have a song with Brad Paisley (Grammy Award-winning country pop singer ) right now and have millions of dollars and a big house. However, any time I’ve tried to sell out in any way in the past something has always gone wrong. I find that as long as I just write the stuff for me it always tends to work out well.”
He may not have a million dollars or a big house on the outskirts of Nashville but Jack Grace does have a fine collection of great songs. Throughout his career he has never taken himself terribly seriously and his country sound and attitude is not a million miles away from that of Galway favourite’s Hayseed Dixie.
“I also play in a band called Van Hayride and we do country versions of Van Halen songs,” he says. “So, it’s interesting that you reference Hayseed Dixie because in the last while we’ve been trying to double up with them to do a tour together. I know their manager and they know about us and we’ve both been kind of doing the same circuit for years.”
Grace, who is not new to Irish shores, is very keen to gain a firm foothold here.
“It’ll be my first official tour of the country but I’ve been to visit many times,” he states. “I’ve checked out the scene and all the places I’m playing are places that I absolutely adore.”
Tickets available from Roisin Dubh, Redlight Records, and Zhivago Records.
