Jack Barksdale
Death of a Hummingbird
Self Released
Fourteen years old, a full length album, and a couple of minor but significant musical awards, and he’s just barely shaving. At that age, I was lucky to find a good radio station to listen to. But Jack might go very far; his album brims with solid songwriting, thrilling performance, and a solid stage presence. I will suggest his voice may not have stabilized, but that in no way diminishes his fast out-of-the-box rise.
Right now, I’m tracking “Trances,” a slow dance folk number with heartful lyrics like “I’ll never get used to this kind of living. There’s solitude dripping from the cracks in the walls.” Damn. That’s deep for fourteen years old. The next track is another dark song of a desperate man just about out of chances, and this track is clearly NOT autobiographic. He’s too young to be this miserable. Then we get “When I lean back, they know I’ll be gone…” and then he floors me with: “I don’t want just to be another man in the ground.” That’s the sort of bitter irony you might get from an old bird like me.
