Richard Hyatt: For the love of music
Jake Xerxes Fussell’s soul is as old as the blues. He makes music that he learned on the front porch of a hard-drinking blues-woman in Talbot County and from Choctaw Indian fiddle players in Oklahoma.
He grew up in a home where the guest list often included artists who didn’t paint by the numbers and literary scholars who read between the lines of Southern writers.
His father, Fred, is a folklorist and his mother, Cathy, is the former director of Columbus State University’s Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians. His sister, Coulter, is a painter and quilter.
As a teenager, he played in the bluegrass band at Country’s Barbecue and later did formal research at the University of Mississippi’s Southern Studies Department.
Anyone who has ever heard him with a guitar in his hand knows Jake was born with music in his veins. He doesn’t write songs. He preserves songs. He isn’t a purist who plays traditional songs note for note. He filters them through his ears and his heart in a style uniquely his own.
One of the songs he collected on the Georgia coast is included on a CD that accompanies Oxford American’s 17th musical issue. This one is devoted to Georgia and it includes legendary artists such as James Brown, Johnny Mercer, the Allman Brothers Band, OutKast and Otis Redding.
Jake’s rendition of “Raggy Levy” follows “See See Rider Blues” by Ma Rainey and “Georgia Buck” by Precious Bryant — his mentor and a family friend from Talbotton.
“It’s nice to be in such good company,” he said. “Columbus is well represented in so many ways.”
Though the city has never fully embraced its musical heritage, others have. Three artists with local roots are among the 25 cuts on the CD.
Within the magazine is a poem by CSU professor Nick Norwood and a painting by native son Bo Bartlett that depicts local guitarist Andrew Zohn.
Jake now lives in Durham, N.C., and works in a bookstore in Chapel Hill. Being cited by Oxford American is impressive, but he does not call it a breakthrough. He’s interested in the music, not stardom.
“This might lead into something but I can’t predict what that will be,” he said. “I just want to be able to play more gigs and to find excuses to do what I love to do.”
— Richard Hyatt is an independent correspondent. Reach him at hyatt31906@knology.net.
This story was originally published November 28, 2015 at 10:00 PM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: For the love of music."