Tag: Things Done Changed

Things Done Changed is a modern-day gem – one which would still be a treasure if you slipped ninety or a hundred years through the time-vortex to chat to Alan Lomax as he was collecting music in the South.

Paxton is in his mid-30’s – the front cover of the album looks like a bluesman with a guitar; the back cover looks like a bluesman with a banjo; the title isn’t that things have changed, it’s Things Done Changed. Expectations are therefore high before the album is played and expectations are more than met on this, to repeat, gem of an acoustic blues album.

The album was released towards the end of October. There are 12 tracks, all originals, all acoustic blues in some form, sung with a voice that reverberates at least a hundred years of culture and played on guitar, banjo, harmonica, piano and bones by a multi-instrumentalist.

Listen to the clip at the foot of this article and you’ll hear why the album was launched at Ronnie Scott’s and Paxton played later the same day, (or ‘Later’) with Jools Holand. There’s a consistency of quality across the album.  If you’re flicking through the tracks to get a feel, then the title track is a classic acoustic guitar blues (as is ‘All and All Blues’ later on the album); ‘Baby Days Blues’ additionally highlights Paxton’s harmonica playing (as does ‘Little Zydeco’, the only instrumental); ‘It’s All Over Now’ was written when he was learning family history, banjo playing style and has a fascinating percussion to the track, created by Paxton playing bones.

And so the album continues – original songs from Paxton imbued with classic style.

‘So Much Weed’ – the title tells you everything (it’s not a gardening lyric); actually, so does the title, ‘What’s Gonna Become of Me’, stunningly played on banjo in a style that Paxton describes as “coming from sounds that seem the oldest in Black folk music, as well as movement that feels leftover from the forefather of the banjo, the folk lute (Akonting) of the Jola people”.

‘Mississippi Bottom’ was written when Paxton moved to New York because he figured “people would prefer a location that would fit the tones of my voice”; ‘Out In This World’ is a traveller’s song; ‘Brown Bear Blues’ reminds you of the ability of Blues songs to genially tell one story in the lyrics and another in the mind; ‘Oxtail Blues’, the only piano track on the album, gives a further example of Paxton’s musical talents.

The album ends with ‘Tombstone Disposition’, of which Paxton notes, “One can easily imagine a person at the end of their rope singing this song. Such is the intent of the composer”. There can’t be many better lines to conclude an album of Blues music than, “I may get better, Lord knows I’ll never get well”.

There is also a neat circularity of sorts in that the Things Done Changed was recorded via Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution which has its own links back to the work of Alan Lomax. A gem of an acoustic blues album, then, from a highly skilled musician and songwriter.

Let’s leave the final words to Jerron Paxton himself: “It wasn’t until I was old enough, about eight or nine, that I realised the music I heard in the house that meant the most to me came from my culture. The southern culture. It kind of knocked my socks off. The music is great because of its own sonic qualities, but the reasons those voices on those records sound so familiar is because they are the voices of the people who raised me…….…..The study of music and its rich history is my first love, and the composition of new, original music is some ways down on that list….. I would like to think that these modern observations are just a small contribution to the tapestry of black folk music. They come from the same tree but are just tender offshoots of the collective language of the music. These songs have added up, and due to some begging by my friends and musical admirers, we have committed them to tape, and we are proud that they have found a home with Folkways”.

Mike Wistow

 Artist’s website: https://www.jerronpaxton.com

‘Mississippi Bottom’ – live: