The Road - Luke Jackson Trio
Photo credit: Raphael Klatzko
We have something a little bit special today. We have been big fans of our next LCM featured artist's music for a number of years now. We think here at LCM that Luke Jackson is one of the best young singer-songwriters currently in the UK. It is always exciting when Luke releases new music, so we where thrilled when on Friday, when he released his new live album entitled 'Solo | Duo | Trio' featuring some of our favourite tracks. Luke recorded the album at a live show in his stomping ground in Canterbury, Kent joined by his great band Connor Downs and Andy Sharps. Our LCM #SongOfTheDay is the mega catchy and bluesy 'On The Road', which you just can't help joining in with.
In 2013 Luke was nominated in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards for both the Horizon Award for Best Emerging Talent and The Young Folk Category. With a bold, distinctive voice and a sweet, percussive guitar style, Luke is a confident and captivating live performer. He was also winner of Fatea’s “Male Artist of the Year 2014” and again in 2016.
Over the past few years he has steadily been developing a reputation for himself in the Folk & Roots circuits either through his solo shows, many festival appearances or when opening for such luminaries as Show of Hands, Steve Knightley, Martyn Joseph, Seth Lakeman, Karine Polwart, Oysterband, Paul Brady, Glen Tilbrook, Sarah Jarosz and Lucy Ward. As well as playing solo, Luke performs as a Trio with drummer Connor Downs and bassist Andy Sharps, or as a duo with either one of them.
He has also completed several tours of Scotland including playing 2 sold out nights at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
He regularly tours across Europe playing in France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany and in 2016 made his first visit to the USA to play at the International Folk Alliance conference in Kansas. At the beginning of 2017 he undertook his third series of joint headline shows with Grammy Award winner Amy Wadge and returned to Kansas for the Folk Alliance following this tour.
His debut album ‘More Than Boys’, produced by the acclaimed Welsh Singer-Songwriter Martyn Joseph, was released in 2012 to great reviews, as was the follow up ‘Fumes and Faith’ in early 2014. In 2015 he released a 7 track EP with his trio, ‘This Family Tree’, which was described in a 5 star Maverick review as ”Two words. Bloody brilliant” and it further reflected his development as both a writer and performer.
November 2016 saw the release of Luke’s 3rd full studio album, “Tall Tales and Rumours” to universal critical acclaim, which Maverick, in a 5 star review, described as “a brilliant, thoughtful album – Jackson shows talent beyond his years”. Whilst Acoustic Magazine noted “Jackson has been compared to a young Richard Thompson and for once these are not empty words”.
Luke is an ever present in the live music scene, gigging relentlessly all over, and he remains a prolific songwriter in demand across the United Kingdom and Europe.