Jake Blount Discusses, Makes Inspired Black Roots Music

Providence, Rhode Island-based songwriter, Jake Blount, is a tailor of musical traditions. The banjo and fiddle player, who cut his teeth playing in funk and metal bands at 12-years-old and has since evolved into a scholar of traditional forms, dives headfirst into sonic histories and lineages each time he picks up an instrument. Blount, who will release his forthcoming LP, Spider Tales, on May 29th, has created a collection of folk songs that reach from Appalachia to Africa, pulling and plucking from some of the genre’s most timeless melodies and heartfelt tales. 

From the moment Blount heard the album, Barton Hollow, by the Civil Wars in high school, he decided to drop everything and buy an acoustic guitar. From then on, he was hooked on traditional music. But as he got deeper into understanding the histories behind the traditional songs, Blount realized how closely and poignantly they started to relate to and intertwine with his own life. Growing up black and queer in America, Blount says, there was much in the cannon of folk music that resonated.