Interviews

Blues player Jack Blackman was a small child when he found an old Jedson Telecaster at home. His dad promised him a better one if he learnt ten chords. A week later, Jack had his replacement guitar. Now 16, Jack has completed his AS levels and spent the summer playing gigs and pondering the future. ‘I still have another year of school to do, so the summer was full of festival appearances, and then back to school in the autumn, and I guess by next summer I will have made a decision about whether I want to pursue my music as a career. The summer has given me a taste of what a full-time career as a guitar player would be like, so I’ll know more when I head back to school.’

Back in 2009, a clear indication of Jack’s considerable talent was an invitation to play Guilfest, with blues legend Joe Bonamassa on the bill. Intimidating? ‘I don’t think I did feel intimidated, no. It was a fantastic festival – Brian Wilson played, and there were loads of fantastic musicians there. I think you have to have a degree of self-confidence to be able to get up on stage and play in front of people. I honestly don’t think about it and do any comparison between me and people who are older than me with more experience. I just get out there and play, and see what happens.’

After passing his music exams, Jack has extended his blues playing by checking out some classical guitar. ‘The last set of lessons I had were actually classical guitar, which was an area of music I wanted to explore some more. It wasn’t really to improve my technical playing – it’s a different style, far more formal. It was simply a style that interested me, and I enjoy classical guitar music, so I thought I’d explore that area a little further. There is no scope for improvisation, which is at the heart of blues guitar, but it was still a nice change to learn some completely new music.

‘I am experimenting with some flatpicking as well, because I mostly use fingerpicking for my songs, so I am having a try at that to see if it works. I am also trying some slide as well. I’m picking up some Charley Patton and Son House music, so I want to get my slide technique up to an acceptable level.’

If Jack chooses to play blues guitar for the future, there’s no doubt he’s got plenty of time – Honeyboy Edwards, one of the original Delta blues players, is still performing at the age of 94, proving the timeless appeal of blues music. Jack explains his original liking of the genre: ‘I think I picked it up like a lot of people do – I listened to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, and then you explore their blues roots and just keep going back and discovering more and more musicians and more music. Back in the very early days of recorded blues the emphasis was on the telling of the story in a song, but there were some amazing guitar techniques on show with those songs and that is why the influence keeps on even today with modern players.’

Find more information about Jack, including an album review by Acoustic’s Gareth Powell, here: www.jackblackman.com.

Andy Hughes

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