The Jackie Frey Collection - September 2008

Tracks:

Eden's LostMr Midnight Highway 13 Rearview mirror This song is old now The Haunting Don't let your love fade away Pharoah's Blues Carmelita (Warren Zevon) Stay at the wheel Broken Promises Jozi Town

Musicians:

Piet Botha: Vocals, guitars, piano, harmonica Johnathan Martin: Guitars, vocals Tertius du Plessis: Bass Paul van de Waal: Drums, percussion
Jacob Wulana: Guitars, vocals, keyboards, bass on 'Jozi Town' Samuel Shoai: drums, percussion, vocals on 'Jozi Town'

Release information:
30th May 2008, JHCD001
CD launch
Ponto Malongane, Mozambique during the annual STRAB festival
Download this album as MP3s at:
Rhythm Online Music Store

Press Release - 26th July 2008
Piet Botha and Jack Hammer, on the road again with "Highway 13"
NEW STUDIO ALBUM RELEASED MAY 2008
"Highway 13" is the new album from Piet Botha and Jack Hammer. This is Jack Hammer's sixth studio album and the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the critically-acclaimed "The Pilgrim", with Botha's three solo offerings, a compilation, a limited edition EP and two live Jack Hammer releases along the way. The band's strongest modern line-up has again been assembled, with Johnathan Martin returned to the fold to assist Piet Botha on guitar and vocal duty and the rock-steady rhythm section of bassist Tertius du Plessis and drummer Paul van de Waal doing far more than just keep a beat.
Jack Hammer has outlasted more than a few record labels and swings of public music taste, and was living the demanding life of an "independent" before many of today's flavour-of-the-month artists could spell the word. There are twelve new tracks on Highway 13, and they mainly deal with the road. It's a road that Jack Hammer knows all too well, notching up around 200 acoustic and full band gigs most years, headlining the region's top festivals and continuing to inspire a generation of younger rock artists about what it is to be a writing, recording, gigging and touring band.
But it's the things that are more than facts which make Jack Hammer what it is, and make "Highway 13" such an important album. The band is practically a canon unto itself, with an unwavering allegiance to a blues-rock sound that owes more to the pioneers of the genre than modern deviations, and is firmly centred around guitar-driven songs and the place of the guitar as an additional voice within the songs. Or, as Botha has quipped, "It is rock and it can go somewhere else but, before it goes pop, the guitars and solos bring it back".
It's also the way the band are their albums, the way they live the songs, and the way their experiences feed directly back into the material. It's no accident that "Highway 13" talks about the toil and toll of the road - both the actual travel criss-crossing South Africa's highways and by-ways time after time, or that it has songs looking at the modern perils of man's oldest sins ("Pharoah's Blues"), our impact on the planet and the blood on the hand's of the faceless corporate giants ("Eden's Lost"), the blood-contract of the artistic spirit ("Stay At The Wheel") and the condition of the modern soul ("Rear View Mirror"). It's certainly no accident that there are hauntingly catchy songs that are also morality tales ("This Song Is Old Now") and that Botha the song-writer presciently tackled head-on the issues that would later boil over into the xenophobic attacks of mid-2008 ("Jozi Town", a superb collaboration with Tidal Waves that is a chillingly stark look at the perils faced by immigrant workers looking for Johannesburg's promised land).
In an age of scripted sets being sold as television reality, Jack Hammer are a band that don't just play songs at gigs, they live the authenticity of sweat falling on the stage sawdust, yet more tyre tracks on yet another road, another few scuffs on the guitar flight cases and the perennial driving force that is the knowledge that somewhere, somehow, there is another rock 'n roll soul who will find an almost spiritual home when they hear these guitars, those voices and the songs that have the shining eternal newness of timeless classics.
- Evan Milton, July 2008
[South African music journalist, radio compiler and DJ, SA Music Awards judge and founder signatory of the South African Music Quota Coalition]
"Highway 13" was recorded, mixed and produced by Lani van der Walt (Not My Dog, Jack Hammer, Albert Frost Trio, Jazz Zombies) at Wolmer Studios and is released courtesy Playdough Records and distributed by Select Music Distribution.
Jack Hammer is:
PIET BOTHA: vocals, guitar, harmonica
JOHNATHAN MARTIN: vocals, guitar
TERTIUS DU PLESSIS: bass
PAUL DE WAAL: drums
For more, please see www.jackhammer.co.za .