Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons at the WOW Hall

On Sunday July 27th the Community Center for the Performing Arts proudly welcomes Jerry Joseph & The Jackmormons to the WOW Hall. Portland’s Jerry Joseph is a bonafide “triple-threat”, a prolific and accomplished songwriter, a powerful singer and a memorable performer. In his four-decade career; as a solo artist, with the Jackmormons, supergroup Stockholm Syndrome, his two-piece The Denmark Veseys, his beloved 80s cult band, Little Women, or most recently with Drive-by Truckers backing him; he has continuously toured the world, including such unlikely locales as Lebanon, Israel, Kurdish Iraq, India, Cambodia and Afghanistan, and released a steady stream of albums. In 40 years the Oregon Music Hall of Fame Inductee has amassed an impressive catalog of work as well as many stamps on his passport. This September, Joseph will release his new studio album Baby You’re The Man Who Would Be King. Recorded in New York City, with renowned producer Eric ‘Roscoe’ Ambel (Nils Lofgren, The Bottle Rockets), the album features a band made up of some of New York’s best musicians – including Charlie Giordiano of The E Street Band – and fulfilled a dream of Joseph’s to make a quintessential New York album. The material was scribed in Joseph’s Portland, Ore. driveway, where he worked in a vintage camping trailer, before taking his collection to the Brooklyn, N.Y. studio during the summer of 2021. As Joseph says, “I had long been talking about making a New York record, I have spent a lot of time there but never made an album there. I met Eric Ambel a couple years earlier when he sat in with my band at Rough Trade in Brooklyn and he and I agreed these songs would be a great batch of material to finally make that album. Eric assembled a seriously wicked band, and I don’t know what he does, but it sounds like NYC to me.” He concludes:”Considering the whole Covid driveway origins, it’s surreal what we made and I’m just going to call it magic … for which I am exceedingly grateful.” The new record will be Joseph’s first full-length studio album since 2020’s critically acclaimed The Beautiful Madness. Produced by Patterson Hood with Drive-By Truckers as his backing band, the album received rave reviews from the media including being chosen Americana Album of the Month by Uncut Magazine, in the Top 20 of 2020 by Glide Magazine and one of the Top Albums of 2020 by Paste Magazine. Uncut Magazine called it, “An album for the times,” and Patterson wrote in the liner notes, “Jerry, to me is a cult figure who could, in some alternate reality, have easily been one of the biggest stars in the world. One of the greatest live performers I have ever seen and long one of my favorite songwriters.” With no way to tour to promote The Beautiful Madness in the midst of a pandemic, Jerry pivoted quickly and was one of the early adaptors of the virtual concert, developing the weekly Jerry Joseph’s Happy Book which streamed on all his social media channels and was watched faithfully week after week by thousands of fans. Live from his home or The Panther Studios in Portland, Joseph performed and told the stories behind his catalog of over 400 songs with occasional guests for 64 weeks and has continued to return to Happy Book on occasion since. Once the world opened up, Jerry toured the UK and Europe solo, as well as opening for Drive-by Truckers’ sold-out tour in support of the release. In November of 2022, Jerry released Tick, a companion piece to The Beautiful Madness. It featured demos and unused studio tracks from the recording of The Beautiful Madness on side one while side two is made up of live recordings with Jerry Joseph backed by the Truckers at the 40 Watt in Athens, GA. Jerry is now returning to Europe this December for a few select shows to celebrate the release of his new record, one of the year’s most anticipated releases. Praise for The Beautiful Madness: “This should be a contender for Album of the Year…a one-of-a-kind devastating album that needs your immediate attention.”- Glide Magazine “The Beautiful Madness is both prophetic and apocalyptic, quickly becoming a revelation for all who have ears to hear.”- No Depression “The album is spectacular.” – Americana Highways “The Beautiful Madness is a record that demands to be heard. …nothing short of a masterpiece. This is a candidate for Album of the Year. Period.”- Folk Radio UK “Dead Confederate” Music Picks of the Week – Rolling Stone Country “as an unflinching look at the world in which we live and an attempt to bring the light of truth to the bear on its darker corners, this is madness to which you really should surrender” – Folking.com “It’s a record that arrives at just the right time, backed by just the right band…. …Jerry Joseph has created an album that deserves to be added to any year-end best-of conversation.” -Routes & Branches