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Based in Durham, North Carolina, singer/guitarist
Jake Xerxes Fussell emerged from a background steeped in the traditional music and folklore of the American South. His
William Tyler-produced eponymous debut album arrived in 2015 and featured his distinctive fingerstyle playing and unique take on traditional blues and folk songs. Over the next half decade,
Fussell's sound evolved with albums like
What In the Natural World (2017) and Out of Sight (2019) revealing an increasingly idiosyncratic approach full of gentle mirth and inventive playing. His fourth album, 2022's
Good and Green Again, was the first to feature his own original songs.
The son of a folklorist, curator, and photographer,
Fussell led a somewhat rambling childhood traveling with his father to record old bluesmen, study the cultural vernacular, and collaborate with Native American artists. These early ventures into rural academia birthed in him a great interest in music, and by his teenage years he was active in the old-time folk scene of his native Columbus, Georgia and apprenticing with regional blues guitar legend
Precious Bryant. Over the coming years, his studies would take him to California, Mississippi, and eventually Durham, North Carolina. He honed his guitar skills sitting in with countless artists and bands, appearing on A Prairie Home Companion, and touring with Rev. John Wilkins.
In 2014, he met experimental guitarist
William Tyler, who agreed to produce
Fussell's first album. Also featuring performances by
Tyler, the self-titled debut was recorded in Nashville with an unusual cast of session veterans and released by North Carolina label Paradise of Bachelors. He deepened his study of obscure American material with a second LP, 2017's
What in the Natural World. Its guests included
Joan Shelley,
Nathan Salsburg, and
Mount Moriah's Casey Toll, among others.
Fussell's third album for Paradise of Bachelors, 2019's more expansive Out of Sight, featured a full backing band consisting of
Libby Rodenbough (violin, vocals), James Anthony Wallace (piano, organ),
Nathan Golub (pedal steel), and
Nathan Bowles (drums).
Moving into the next decade,
Fussell's unique catalog continued to expand. Produced by
James Elkington and featuring an assortment of collaborators like
Bonnie "Prince" Billy and
Joe Westerlund, 2022's
Good and Green Again marked
Fussell's first entry into original compositions. ~ Timothy Monger