October 23, 2019 | UHCL Staff
Performing tight, three-part harmonies from the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, After Jack is a musical celebration of togetherness. Named 2014 Americana Vocal Group of the Year by the Appalachian Cultural Music Association, the trio will bring their particular brand of “hot folk” to the University of Houston-Clear Lake's Bayou Theater on Thursday, Nov. 7, 7:30 p.m.
“We play traditional Appalachian instruments like the fiddle, bass, guitar, mandolin, piano and banjo, and we pull in influences from gospel, bluegrass, old-time and country,” said Emily Blankenship-Tucker, one of the group’s founding vocalists. “It’s the sounds of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which is where we are based.”
Blankenship-Tucker said that the group, which includes Blankenship-Tucker’s wife Rachel and the recent addition of Catherine Backus after the departure of the group’s third original member Mary Allison, met while working as performers in professional theater company called the Jack Tale Players that dramatized a collection of Appalachian stories focusing on a boy named Jack. “We spent several years touring with the Jack Tale Players and when that was over, we formed a group that was literally After Jack.”
She said that the group was touring Texas for the first time, and that nearly all of their music was original and inspired by their traditional Appalachian roots. “Our songwriting is a nod to the past in many ways,” she said. “We have some traditional music in our show, and we are working on an upcoming recording project. It’ll be the first record with Catherine, released by Travianna Records. It’s the new and updated After Jack.”
Between the three, Blankenship-Tucker said, they play a lot of instruments. “We learned from teachers and we taught ourselves,” she said. “Catherine and I both have a music degree, and we all have some degree of formal training, and some degree of just taking it from there.”
She said she hoped that the audience would be drawn together by their music. “I hope people find some connection to our songs, hear echoes from the past, feel uplifted and walk away humming some of our tunes,” she said.
Find out more about the Bayou Theater and upcoming events online.
