Jerron Paxton + Rik Warren

About

Growing up in Los Angeles, Jerron Paxton would sit with an ear by the radio, eagerly absorbing the nuances and history of Black American traditional music that connect him to his ancestral roots in the South. A songwriter, inheritor of tradition, and a walking, talking jukebox, Paxton approaches his craft with equal part wit and reverence, with a knack for leg-pulling and cracking wise. Things Done Changed (Smithsonian Folkways) is an album of original songs that sound beamed in from nearly a century ago, when jazz and blues were performed as a means of both personal and cultural survival. Lick by lick, Paxton builds a bridge between generations gone and generations to come, singing the heartaches and joys of the past and present. Special guest is Rik Warren. Rik Warren is a Manchester-based musician, songwriter, harmonica player and sky poet. Founding member of the much-loved bands Honeyfeet and the groundbreaking electro-blues project Walk, Rik has been lighting up stages for over 20 years with a sound that’s impossible to pin down — and even harder to forget. He fuses raw, gritty blues (soaring harmonica riffs, roadhouse grooves and slippery slide guitar) with heartfelt folk storytelling, lush ambient textures and a spark of wild experimental edge. His solo releases — Return of the Jagwa, Old Green Road, Arbor Low Equinox and more on Bandcamp — are cinematic journeys through landscape, memory and wide-open sky.