When I discovered this girl about three years ago, I was shocked.
Electrocuted by her powerful and intense voice, her songwriting full of different influences and her explosive stage presence (look at her videos and you’ll understand what I’m talking about). I decided to talk about her debut (find the article here: https://www.trexroads.com/fly-bird-jade-marie-patek-2018-english/ ) after listening and listening to the single Dancing with the Devil that had hypnotized me.
I had caught her southern rock and blues influences in that piece and in fact reading her bio are just two great names from the rock and southern past that Jade Marie Patek cites: Allman Brothers Band and the immense Janis Joplin (I would also add Tom Petty and the soul music of Muscle Shoals).
The feeling that I felt listening to that debut was just to have found a great singer and then reading about her Texas origin I was not surprised: over there the reservoir of young talent has no bottom.
Also in the family of Jade the music was at home: her grandfather Joe had been one of the forefathers of Texas polka music.
In my small way I wanted to make a small tribute to Jade Marie Patek: in my third crime book, written at this time, I imagined my protagonists attending to her concert at Billy’s Ice in New Braunfels, Texas and be enchanted by the single that made me know her.
Let’s go back to Jade Marie Patek: after the 2018 EP I told you about, an intense live activity began that continued streaming even during the dark period of 2020.
She released 7 singles (including some really amazing covers) and her name has started to circulate insistently in the Texas independent music circuit and beyond.
The accumulated experience and her innate (and great) talent as a singer and songwriter have brought her to her real debut in this 2023: Song in my Head.
They are 10 pieces of a lyrical sincerity, variety of sounds and vocal power to leave really amazed.
Someone who approached Jade with this record for the first time, could fall in love with this artist immediately and not leave her anymore. I have warned you.
There is room for many genres of Southern music, all characterized by quality and a personal and recognizable sound.
Just start listening to this record and you immediately understand that Patek is not just any singer: Hey Darlin with the slide guitar, that strong flavor of southern music immediately takes the scene and then that powerful voice never leaves indifferent.
And what about the next Last Straw? A blues rock start, wonderful guitar work and that scenic power so similar to that of one of her references and Texas like her Janis Joplin.
The times are different, the world is different, but Jade Marie has everything to be remembered among the best Texas artists and one of those who could carry on the legacy of Joplin.
The ballad Beautiful Liar is intense, powerful, and the lyrics are just as powerful when it speaks to us about addictions and life marked by substance abuse.
The voice, my friends, as I often repeat when I speak of Patek is a medicine for the soul.
The production of Adam Odor is perfect and creates around the voice and songs of Jade, a perfect dress, nothing is out of place and then the presence of collaborators musicians of the highest level helps a lot: Rio Tripiano, the Midnight River Choir and especially the wonderful guitar of Dustin Schaefer (soloist of one of my favorite bands ever: Shane Smith and the Saints).
Leave a Mark is a country ballad, a ride in the canyon sun. Beautiful the interweaving between the acoustic guitar and the background of pedal-steel so Texas, so evocative. The arrangement is perfection.
The influences of the past in the music of Patek are well visible, but always declined with personality and so in Ruin a Good Thing the sounds seem to come from the country of the years 80-90 and the sincerity with which she speaks of her are typical of independent country music. It’s what fans of this kind of music are looking for: sincerity and an open heart. The solo is a real gem, really creepy.
The bass line intro of I Won’t Be Used is soul and the text that tells us about how to have the strength in the face of abuse and humiliation is powerful. Another crazy vocal performance, the voice enters the soul and shakes it as Janis did, with the same disarming simplicity and sincerity.
The groove of the beautiful Vodooo Child is one of the peaks of the songwriting of this album: a song that we imagine listening in the streets of New Orleans and reminded me of the legendary Marie Laveau by Bobby Bare. Another fantastic solo that enriches a song with a perfect arrangement and an enveloping rhythm. Beautiful!
The ballad Just to Survive is a reflection on veterans returning to civilian life after a war. A reflection of a remarkable expressive power that the voice of Patek makes even more incisive.
A record that I have been waiting for a long time and that pays off the wait of almost 5 years. An album that will please fans of Southern music, the one that travels transversely from country to southern, from blues to soul.
You will fall in love with a girl with an incredible, expressive and powerful voice that combines this talent in writing songs really above average.
10 open-heart songs, sincere and not banal poems, enriched by supporting musicians and a production of absolute quality.
Do not miss this discovery, we will meet again here or on my blog Trex Roads in some time and you will tell me if you are not grateful to Trex for having made you discover an artist who deserves to be in your favorite playlists and who has been, also for you, a sweet medicine for the soul.
And if you can’t see her live, wait for my novel and you can “watch” a concert with “my” Cody Myers and the team of detectives from the New Braunfels Department, but this, as they say, is another story.
Good listening,
Trex Willer by http://www.ticinonotizie.it
(in Ticino Notizie web site you can find original italian version of this article)
