About Me
VASTI JACKSONA soulful world renown guitar player and vocalist, whose presence captures an audience the moment he takes the stage, he commands the house while deftly leading his band.Grammy-nominee Vasti (pronounced Vast-Eye) Jackson is a consummate performer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer. From his early beginnings playing in juke joints in McComb, Mississippi, to his most recent release, "Live In Nashville" is a no holds barred, walking the razors edge, funky blues celebration that puts you slap dab in the middle of the juke joint. Recorded at Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar. Vasti and his band move non-stop from Blues to Soul to Funk to Jazz. He made each person feel as if he were performing for that one person and that one person only.
Vasti's talent has been enlarged by an amazing array of musical experiences over 30 years of his vibrant career.Jackson's latest studio release "No Borders to the Blues", is a good sample of Vasti´s limitless energy and magnetism. It spotlights his talents as singer and musician, and his utterly thrilling guitar mastery. This CD also features guest music stars who blend in a perfectly finished production of his own: piano great Henry Butler, folk funk master Bobby Rush (on harmonica), and New Orleans bass legend guitarist George Porter, Jr.Rooted in the Blues, Vasti Jackson recorded on B.B. King's Grammy award winning Blues Summit in 1994. In the 1980s and early 1990s Vasti was musical director, and guitarist ZZ Hill, Johnnie Taylor, and blues 'n' boogie queen Katie Webster, and has opened for the blues great on many occasions. He also worked with gospel greats - including the Williams Brothers, the Jackson Southernaires, and Daryl Coley; with soul and blues artists Bobby "Blue" Bland, Little Milton, Percy Sledge and Sam Myers; and with jazz artists Harry Connick, Jr., Wynton Marsalis, and Cassandra Wilson, just as well. Vasti has also played guitar on Malaco Records for Latimore, Denise LaSalle, Bobby Rush, and Johnnie Taylor.An accomplished composer, Vasti Jackson composed two songs for Stop Breakin' Down, a film on the life of Mississippi blues icon Robert Johnson. He penned "Casino in the Cottonfield" for the Robert Mugge music documentary, Last of the Mississippi Jukes, and wrote on the spot and performed his "Train Rolling Blues," in the PBS docu-drama series The Blues, executive produced by Martin Scorsese. He also wrote and performed "America, Proud and Strong" with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra and a 1,000-voice choir, for the 2003 Mississippi ETV presentation, Mississippi, The Birthplace of America's Music. Festivals and international tours have taken him to Japan, Germany, France, Greece, South Africa, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Sicily, Norway, Finland, England, Uruguay, Brazil and Portugal.Vasti Jackson has been featured in Guitar Player Magazine, Living Blues, Nothing But the Blues, Juke Blues (England), Blues Revue, and many other publications. He has performed on Dan Akroyd's House of Blues Radio Hour, the Starz Encore Network, WGN-TV in Chicago, and PBS. He has performed, written, produced, and recorded music for HBO, VH1, Mississippi Educational Television, the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), and radio and television programs in Australia, Uruguay, Finland, and Canada. Vasti co-produced Bobby Rush's Hoochie Man, earning a Contemporary Blues Record of the Year Grammy Award nomination in 2002.Vasti Jackson is professionalism at its best. He is a combination of talent, broad experience and versatility. His soulful and energetic performance will take your audience on a journey they will never forget.
