Jade Jackson
Wilderness

Jade is 27 years old today.

When she was 20, during a hike, she fell into a ravine and crashed onto a rock. She risked complete paralysis but after a couple of years, she came out healthier than before.

She picked up her beloved guitar again, returned to composing songs and playing them in her small circle, because that was what she was determined to do.

She had decided this when, as a teenager, she attended a Social Distortion concert and fell madly in love with them.

Social Distortion were (are) a Californian punk rock band that debuted in the early eighties with an album – «Mommy's Little Monster» – that is today a cornerstone of the genre. They are still around, occasionally recording an album, maintaining a coherence of purpose and admirable moral integrity.

Yesterday and today more than ever, Social Distortion is identified – after the death of partner Dennis Danell – with the figure of singer, guitarist, composer and the only surviving member of the original lineup, Michael "Mike" Ness, who can be defined as a romantic of rock'n'roll, one of the few left.

Then Jade began an intense correspondence with the band and with Mike which, initially, led to little for Jade's artistic career, but to a strong friendship between Jade's mother and Christine, Mike's wife.

So when, having overcome the trauma of the accident, Jade returns to play in her tiny circles, Christine is there in the audience along with her son Jason, to give all their support to a girl who really needed it at that time.

Christine and Jason are struck by the immediate freshness of Jade's songs and start putting relentless pressure on Mike to do something for her.

Mike agrees to give this very young Social Distortion enthusiast a chance and has to conclude that his wife and son are right: Jade has the talent and he takes her under his protective wing.

In 2017 Mike produces Jade's debut album, «Gilded». Last month, «Wilderness» followed. By now, Jade and Mike are a team.

Jade loves Social Distortion to death and, with a touch of rhetorical emphasis, working with Mike borders on a waking dream.

Jade loves Social Distortion to death but doesn't play punk rock music: she plays country music.

Between "certain" country and "certain" punk, indeed, there's not a great distance, at least ideally: this is evidenced by the lives and works of many, from Hank Williams to Johnny Cash on one side, or the unsuspected Fred Cole from the garage-punksters Dead Moon on the other; this is evidenced by Social Distortion, who in their career, have so far tackled only two covers, one by the Rolling Stones, the other by Johnny Cash; this is evidenced by Mike, who, in the late nineties, adds a solo adventure that is openly and explicitly country alongside the band.

«Wilderness» is a record of rock substance in form and country inspiration, rebellious and restless, that find near-perfect synthesis in the initial «Bottle It Up». Then an alternation between fast and brisk tracks – among which «Don't Say that You Love Me», written by Mike, is an absolute must-mention, and the title-track – and mid-tempo ballads that almost recall the good times of John Mellencamp and that sound that was called heartland rock.

In short, a great album, given the times even for taking a car ride with the windows down, this in the player and the volume high enough to spread the word of Jade and Mike.