Jeb Loy Nichols

Capitol Records press photo: Michael Wilson (1997)

Jeb Loy Nichols playlist

Contributor: Andrew Shields

I discovered Jeb Loy Nichols in June this year through Ted Gioia’s Ten New Albums I’m Enjoying Right Now. The CD he recommended was the artist’s most recent one, Shadow On The Day (there will be more on that album later in this piece). This sent me to Bandcamp, where – after listening to it – I could only agree with Gioia’s claim that it was “one of the best albums you will hear” this year. His almost throwaway description of Jeb’s career as a singer “born in Wyoming and now living in Wales” was also intriguing to me. How did this seemingly rather odd career path come about? And had Nichols’ earlier music achieved the same level of artistic excellence as Shadow undoubtedly did?

Over the last few months then, I have been exploring Nichols extensive back catalogue. What I have discovered from doing so is an artist who has not only written some superb music but also seems to have a remarkably sane and balanced view of life.

Nichols was born in Wyoming but moved to Missouri as a young boy. The family later set up home in Austin in Texas, where the young Nichols went to gigs by artists as diverse as the Sex Pistols and George Jones. His parents’ listening habits were also varied, ranging from country and bluegrass to jazz. Through hearing local radio stations, Jeb also developed an interest in soul music (some of his early favourites were such fine artists as “Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield … [and] the Staples Singers”). After winning a scholarship to an art school in New York, he also became a fan of the emerging hip-hop scene there. At this time, he also developed friendships with young artists like Neneh Cherry and Ari Up of the Slits (these connections were to prove important once Nichols moved to London in the early 80s). Later on, Nichols’ music would reflect this rich stew of musical influences, which ranged all the way from rap artists through the swampy sound of Tony Joe White to country singers like Hank Williams and Merle Haggard.

Nichols’ first ventures into music have been sometimes described as ‘country-dub’. These primarily involved the band, the Fellow Travellers, which he formed with his wife, the singer and artist Lorraine Morley, the bassist Martin Harrison, and the trombonist and sax-player John Harborne. An example of their work can be heard here.

After the band folded, Nichols recorded his first solo album, Lovers Knot, on Capitol records in 1997. From it I have included the moody atmospheric track, As The Rain, which has a strong reggae-dub feel:

Reflecting the diversity of Nichols’ music, however, the song also featured the saxophonist Roy Nathanson, and the trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, from the celebrated jazz group, the Jazz Passengers. The song later featured in the soundtrack for the movie, Good Will Hunting. Its appearance there did not, though, work the same magic for Nichols’ career as Miss Misery did for Eliott Smith.

My next choice, Heaven Right Here comes from Jeb’s second solo album, Just What Time It Is. This is his catchiest song by far, with an irresistible anthemic chorus. Sadly, it did not achieve the level of commercial success it deserved.

By contrast to Heaven Right Here – which still fitted within the country-dub reggae sound Nichols had pursued since the Fellow Travellers – the next selection, That’s Not What She Said To Me, is much closer to classic country-folk in the style of, say, John Prine or early J.J. Cale (whose drawling vocals are a clear influence on the way that Nichols sings). Its witty wordplay also owes a clear debt to Prine’s work.

As we saw earlier, jazz influences played a large part in Nichols’ songwriting style from early in his career. These influences were to be a particularly marked feature of his 2009 album, Strange Faith And Practice. His backing band on the record included the superb Australian pianist Jennifer Carr, the saxophonist Mark Hanslip and the bassist Riaan Vosloo. The loose, elliptical style of their arrangements act as a perfect foil to Nichols’ songwriting, especially on my next pick, the lovely ballad, Lake Whitfield.

By contrast, the title track is looser and more improvisatory. It also gives the band a perfect opportunity to show off their superb musical skills.

Long Live The Loser could be seen as a statement of Nichols’ personal philosophy. Its lyric also reflects the anti-consumerist and anti-materialist outlook which led him to relocate with his wife to a farm in Wales in 2000. He had grown increasingly tired of the strains of living in an urban environment and was happy to relocate to a place where he was “outnumbered by animals and plants”. Here is a beautifully mellow live version of the song:

Nichols recorded his excellent 2022 album, The United States Of The Broken Hearted, for his friend Adrian Sherwood’s label On-U Sound. Sherwood also produced the album. Perhaps ironically – given the latter’s prominence in reggae and dub circles – it was the most Americana-sounding album of Nichols’ career to date. Less surprisingly, its songs also engaged with the political turbulence that has characterised US politics in recent times. Among the best of these was the brooding Big Troubles Come In Through A Small Door …

… and the more downbeat and reflective title track, with its echoes of Curtis Mayfield’s classic, We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue. Along with such outstanding original songs, the record is also notable for its well-chosen cover songs. These include one of the best versions I have ever heard of Woody Guthrie’s Deportees and brilliant takes on the folk standard Satisfied Mind and Sarah Gunning’s I Hate The Capitalist System.

To return to where we came in, Nichols’ most recent record, Shadow On The Day, is among the most accomplished in his long career. As Ted Gioia has pointed out, “you can’t get more back to basics” than this album. It features Nichols with Jennifer Carr on piano and keyboards, with occasional and beautifully subtle and understated backing from Andy Hamill on bass and Ross Stanley on Hammond organ. If the musicians were not as accomplished and subtle as they are, this could easily have been a template for tedium. Nothing could, however, be further from the truth. Instead, Carr’s arrangements are both beautifully understated and superbly tailored to fit Nichols’ songwriting style. For me, it is one of the very best – perhaps the best album – of this year. The songs on the album are also consistently excellent and it was very difficult to decide which ones to exclude from this list. In the end, my choice was based on selecting those tracks which gave a good representation of the qualities of the album as a whole. Both Say Goodbye To Christopher and Me Too (Lullaby for Arthur) are beautiful songs, which Carr’s superb arrangements only enhance.

As the album suggests – despite the artistic excellence of his music before this – Jeb Loy Nichols’ best work may still be ahead of him.

On the release of ‘Long Time Traveller’ (2016)

If there is a single word to “define” the entire labyrinthine musical journey offered by singer and songwriter Jeb Loy Nichols’ work, it’s “mercurial” … A stinging blues guitar vamp informs the intro of “Don’t Drop Me” but it shifts gears into slippery funk, driven by a popping bassline, handclaps, and swirling synths. (Thom Jurek, AllMusic)

Jeb Loy Nichols official website

Jeb Loy Nichols Bandcamp

Suzanne and Gertrude – a novel by Jeb Loy Nichols

Jeb Loy Nichols’ Favourite Records: Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives (The Quietus)

Americana UK Interview: Jeb Loy Nichols pays homage to Woody Guthrie and his dad’s love of bluegrass

Shadows and Reflections: Jeb Loy Nichols at Caught By The River website

Jeb Loy Nichols on Compass Records

Jeb Loy Nichols biography (AllMusic)

Andrew Shields is a freelance historian, who grew up in the West of Ireland and currently lives in Sydney, Australia. Along with an interest in history, politics and literature, his other principal occupations are listening to and reading about the music of Bob Dylan and, in more recent years, immersing himself in the often brilliant and unduly neglected music of Phil Ochs.

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