After a long and seasoned career as a bassist and sideman to many, clocking up an impressive list of albums and international tours along the way, Bill Jacobi has more recently been settling into the North Coast life style and embracing the roll of singer songwriter, solo performer and one-man band.
As a solo artist, Bill uses foot percussion, lap slide and open tuned guitars, and a combination of finger picking and bassline driven rhythm that snakes and rattles around songs both evocative and passionate. The result is a repertoire of engaging and exciting material that runs the gamut from folk to funk, from hillbilly to hip hop and beyond.
With years of experience behind him, Bill has proved himself to be a captivating performer, moving effortlessly between soulful and intimate interpretations to foot stomping crowd shakers.
As a writer, Bill’s songs emanate a strong sense of sense of the groove and are laden with a down to earth honesty. Stories that bristle with humour and sensitivity; songs that are an eclectic amalgamation of swamp/roots, alternative county and hillbilly funk; that somehow manage to look back at a wealth of musical tradition, have a good poke around and then turn and run the other way.
Having established itself early as a way of life, music has taken Bill all over Australia; to Ireland, London, New Zealand, Malaysia and Vietnam; and on numerous tours of the European Continent. Still often seen playing bass with Floyd Vincent and the Childbrides or fronting his own band Method, over the years Bill has toured and recorded with a long list of artists including Goanna, Shane Howard, Neil Murray, The Warumpi Band and The Stiff Gins; to name but a few.
See Bill at the Sheoak Shack on Saturday.
