One of our favorite new discoveries this year is this Durham, NC folk-blues artist with a terrific self-titled debut release. The son of folklorist, curator, and photographer Fred C. Fussell, young Jake grew up in Columbus, Georgia, often accompanying his dad on trips to work with blues and old-time musicians and American Indian artists (which led Jake eventually to his graduate research on Choctaw fiddlers.) After apprenticing under Piedmont blues great Precious Bryant, playing with Etta Baker, moving to Berkeley to learn from Haight/Ashbury folkies, and moving to Oxford, MS to enroll in the Southern Studies department at Ole Miss, he met producer William Tyler, and the two began work on this album. In short, he's our kind of guy.
By the way, yes, Xerxes really is his middle name. He's named after Georgia potter D.X. Gordy.