“Why Tom Waits? The better question is ‘Why not Tom Waits?’” states young Fort Worth-based guitar slinger Jack Barksdale. “His songs are really fun to cover, and you can’t really play them like Tom Waits does, so you’re pretty much forced to make them your own.” Listen to their charming renditions of Tom Waits’ memorable tunes, “How’s It Gonna End” and “Yesterday Is Here,” and it’s hard to believe that Lindi Ortega and Jack Barksdale haven’t performed together for years.
Lindi Ortega and Jack Barksdale will co-headline Canadian concert dates in August. “How’s It Gonna End” and “Yesterday Is Here” are available today.
Ortega, a well-regarded, Toronto-bred roots noir artist, and Barksdale, a roots music wunderkind, met up for this unique collaboration through their mutual friend, Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist/producer Mike Meadows (Willie Nelson, Shawn Colvin, Hayes Carll). When Meadows brought Jack in to play some slide on Lindi’s upcoming record, as she describes it, “Mike noticed a similar thread of commonality in our mutual love of the same artists and the dark subject matter of our songs,” leading her and Meadows to the idea that she and Barksdale should cover Tom Waits tunes together. She picked “How’s It Gonna End” because “it’s super eerie and creepy, and so am I,” quipped Ortega. Barksdale went with one of his favorite Waits numbers, “Yesterday Is Here,” which he felt paired well with Ortega’s selection.
The duo captures that dark Waitsian spirit, revealing the timelessness of Waits’ songs and delivering thoroughly compelling performances true to their musical talents. Alongside Ortega, Barksdale balances his dramatically strummed acoustic guitar with his gently haunting vocals on his wise-beyond-his-years rendition of “Yesterday Is Here.” “How’s It Gonna End” maintains and enhances the theatrical elements of Waits’ original for this crime tale brought to life through Ortega’s charismatic vocals. Meadows’ atmospheric production and tasteful percussion subtly enhance the uneasy mood within both songs.
Ortega and Barksdale’s shared love for Tom Waits music arose somewhat serendipitously. Ortega recalls how, years ago, she was randomly given a tape of Waits’ Mule Variations and was knocked out by how amazing the album’s songs were. “I find his words and music transport me to a place that feels like I’ve been there before, and it’s haunted,” she elaborates. “It feels like a myriad of ghosts are drunk, dancing in the ache of non-existence.” Watching Waits’ Austin City Limits performance on YouTube one night was Barksdale’s introduction to Waits, and he has been listening to him ever since. “Discovering each album is like discovering a new artist; every time, it feels just as magical,” he shares. “The biggest thing I’ve learned from Tom Waits is that art doesn’t have to be pretty or perfect to be beautiful.”
The videos created for each song wonderfully reflect the mood that Ortega and Barksdale create in their performances and are released today: “How’s It Gonna End” and “Yesterday Is Here.”
“Yesterday Is Here” comes from Waits’ 1987 album, Frank’s Wild Years, his tenth studio release and the third installment of his highly praised “trilogy” for Island Records, including Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs. NME’s Critics Poll ranked Frank’s Wild Years in the top five albums for 1987. “How’s It Gonna End” hails from Waits’ album, Real Gone, his sixteenth studio effort that Anti-Records put out in 2004. Real Gone reached #1 on the US Billboard Independent Album charts and was named Album of the Year by Harp Magazine. Both tunes are collaborations between Waits and his wife, writer Kathleen Brennan. Barksdale feels that the couple’s writing “always feels so innovative. They (Waits/Brennan) make their own rules and criteria and don’t apologize for it. Their work has inspired and paved the way for so many people.”
About Lindi Ortega: The Canadian singer/songwriter burst upon the Americana scene in the early 2010s with the release of Juno-nominatedLittle Red Boots and its follow-up Cigarettes & Truckstops, which earned her Canadian Country Music Associations Awards. Described by Rolling Stone Country as “impossible to ignore,” Ortega’s eclectic twangy sound continued to earn her accolades for the releases to follow, Tin Star and Faded Gloryville. Her last full-length album, Liberty, was characterized by BBC News as “a musical movie noir” and heralded by the NY Times as having “ample echoes of Enno Morricone, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton.” After taking some time away from music, 2024 is shaping up to be a big year for Ortega. In the spring, she released a duet tune with folk singer Tennyson King, and Ortega has been working with Mike Meadows on an upcoming album that will be released in the fall leading up to her return to AmericanaFest.
About Jack Barksdale: The Fort Worth, Texas native may only be in his teens, but he has already impacted the music world. He was only 11 when he recorded his first album, Live From Niles City, and just 14 when he released his first studio album, 2022’s Death of a Hummingbird. NPR has raved that “Jack Barksdale is special,” and American Songwriter proclaimed, “Barksdale has insights and awareness far beyond people twice his age and he’s able to put them into songs that touch listeners.” Barksdale continues to record music at an impressively prolific pace. In 2023, he released a seven-track instrumental EP, Phantom Trails, with Mike Meadows, who also produced Hummingbird.
