J.D. Mcpherson

MUSIC J.D. MCPHERSON College of Charleston Cistern Yard June 7 and 8 at 9:00pm SPONSORED BY CHARLESTON PLACE J.D. McPherson, voice and guitar with Jimmy Sutton, voice and bass Jason Smay, drums Douglas Corcoran, tenor saxophone and baritone guitar Raynier Jacildo, piano PERFORMED WITHOUT AN INTERMISSION. J.D. MCPHERSON is well-versed in the bustling center of the contemporary arts. “I did my undergraduate process of working within clearly defined studies at the University of Oklahoma in experimental film,” formal parameters, and he employs a he says. “I wanted to paint, do installation, make video art, similarly rigorous discipline with his music. performance stuff, sculpture. I’ll bet I’m the only person to have On his debut album, Signs and Signifiers, received graduate credit hours in card magic.” He wound up with produced by his musical partner, Jimmy an M.F.A. from the University of Tulsa in open media, designed Sutton, McPherson seamlessly meshes specifically for his interests and ambitions. the old and the new, the primal and the But all along the way, music was an integral part of his life. His sophisticated, into a work that speaks to dad introduced him to Delta blues and jazz as a kid, and after traditional American rock ‘n’ roll and R&B purists while also getting into Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and punk rock during high exhibiting McPherson’s gift for mixing and matching disparate school, he picked up a Buddy Holly box set. “Something about that stylistic shapes and textures. scratched an itch,” he says. “Then I started getting into the black “There are little subcultures within the roots scene, where side of rock ’n’ roll: Larry Williams, Little Richard, Art Neville’s stuff people are really into rockabilly, traditional hillbilly stuff or old- on Specialty, then soul and Jamaican rocksteady.” While studying timey music,” J.D. points out, “but there aren’t a whole lot of folks visual arts, he also played in bands, doing everything from punk making hard-core rhythm & blues harkening back to Specialty, to western swing. Vee-Jay or labels like that. That’s what Jimmy and I really like, J.D. was still scratching that itch when he recorded some originals and our only intention going in was just to make a solid rhythm with his previous band and took a shot in the dark. Well aware and blues/rock ‘n’ roll record. But I didn’t want to make a time- of Sutton’s status on the roots scene, he asked if the producer/ machine record, so we tried to make something relevant but with bassist would listen to his demos. The work wowed Sutton and all the things we love about rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm and blues led them to make Signs and Signifiers, as well as a video of one of and mesh it all together. We both have eclectic tastes; Jimmy the album’s songs, North Side Gal, that has over a million YouTube likes The Clash as much as he likes Little Richard, and I like the views and counting. Pixies, T.Rex, hip-hop, and all kinds of stuff.” Never has an album McPherson has no doubts about the viability of the choice he of so-called “retro” music been laced with such a rich payload of has made. “Working within a genre has been done in all kinds of postmodern nuance. But that was precisely the intent of what J.D. mediums—look at Alfred Hitchcock,” he points out. “It’s been describes, only half-facetiously, as “an art project disguised as an established that rock ‘n’ roll is a viable form—it’s hard-wired into R&B record.” American brains to understand swinging blues stuff. So it’s not McPherson has taken a circuitous path to his career in music. His surprising to me that kids are into the Black Keys and Adele. It just native Broken Arrow butts up against Tulsa, a cultural oasis in the had to be presented to them.” heartland that has long been not only a musical hotbed but also a These performances are made possible in part through funds from the Spoleto Festival USA Endowment, generously supported by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina. 95.

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