Jerry Joseph & The Jackmormons - Happy Book [2012]  E-mail this product to a friend

For more than 30 years, Jerry Joseph has been strapping on a guitar and chasing down truth, understanding and soul with a tenacity and resonant skill that mark him as a hard charging kindred spirit to Joe Strummer, Warren Zevon and Patti Smith. While not a household name or critic’s darling, Joseph is the archetypal musician’s musician, something resoundingly clear on his sweeping new double album, Happy Book. Captured with muscle and blood by Joseph’s longtime trio The Jackmormons, this latest chapter in his long, strange journey flows like glowing quicksilver through the modern psyche. Happy Book presents The Jackmormons at their most diverse and confident, a record with a wide swing that dexterously moves from whisper closeness to Technicolor expansiveness. Many of the songs on Happy Book were written in Mexico right after Joseph’s father passed away but then left wide-open so the band could be part of the writing process, producing an emotional and sonic wallop fueled by the tightest, tastiest playing Joseph (guitar, lead vocals), JR Ruppel (bass, backing vocals) and Steve Drizos (drums, backing vocals) have ever captured in the studio. Want a preview? You can STREAM the audio here: