"my heart breaks for ALICE..."
Oregon based Jenner Fox whose songs run the gamut from folksy songs about love, life from hometown perspectives, some with whimsical imagery, some with social commentary, some with more questions than answers but all that grab you hard by the shirt collar or gently around the waist. His latest "Alice" feels darkly sobering. A slow rolling piece of garden rock storytelling that feels part porch country and part country gospel is not about a lost love but something else. You see, "Alice" is about ALICE, an acronym for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. A government endorsed procedure intended to increase student's chances of survival during a school shooting.
From his upcoming record "Good Luck Road" dropping on July 1, 2022 (which is set in the rural Wyoming town of Dayton), "Alice" is told "from the perspective of the small-town sheriff who's tasked with the heart-breaking job of explaining a new protocol to combat school shootings (A.L.I.C.E.) to his local district". The song feels like a dark real life documentary as Jenner laments the death of innocence since Columbine and the dichotomy and duality of growing up with guns in a world where people never locked them up because they didn't have to and about the youthful notion that guns were never ever meant to hunt people, only deer. There is a sense in "Alice" that something inside all of us broke on April 20th, 1999 when the Columbine High School massacre happened, something that can never be completely repaired.
"Alice" is not a political song and only asks questions as it steeps in it's own sadness. It doesn't feel anti-gun or pro-gun and lest we forget Columbine was an attempted bombing too. The song, in the end, laments the loss of family, of our kids and makes us think about the numerous ways our collective kids' mental health is in peril. As with all such things maybe only love is the answer. Love of family and of community which during these divisive times sometimes seems to be in short supply.
-Robb Donker Curtius
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THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.facebook.com/jennerfoxmusic/
https://www.instagram.com/jennerfoxmusic/
https://jennerfox.com/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0yL6Mv8jnZmSAMnvTa8tyX
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLNKSQeGkzJpyFjBpRzbm_g
“Jenner combines the lyricism of Joni Mitchell and the commentary of Neil Young to represent the next generation of singer-songwriters.”— grammy nominated producer, Cookie Marenco.
Jenner is a writer of songs and nonsense. He grew up singing folk songs in wet chairs with his river guide parents and their friends. In 2015, he recorded his first album to sell to rafting clients. They invited him to play in their living rooms, and those gigs lead to years of piecing together tours and cutting his teeth on the road with various bands and minivans. Today, the Oregon based musician guides whitewater rivers internationally, prefers to ride his cargo bike to shows, and teaches songwriting to young musicians.
“Jenner is a storyteller. His music is full of love, compassion and curiosity. The characters are relatable because they’re real folks. His stories are sincere and draw you in because they’re your stories. His songs make it clear that he is a true listener and observer of the world around him, and will have you laughing one minute and crying the next, engaged with wide eyes and bated breath from start to finish.” – Lawson White, Producer (Lake Street Dive, Shania Twain).
The latest album, “Planet I’m From,” began on a Subway ride from Mets Stadium to Brooklyn. Jenner met producer Lawson White, and they embarked on a three year saga that would eventually yield a little 8-song world. It’s Jenner’s quirky heartforward songs, in a star studded Nashville room – all the musicians leaned in, breathing and listening together. It’s Jenner’s storytelling and raw delivery with the lines filled in, featuring highlight performances by Chris “Critter” Eldrige (The Punch Brothers, Live From Here) and Brittany Haas (Dave Rawlings & Gillian Welch). The soundscape is primarily acoustic – finger picked guitar lines, three part harmony, weaving violin, pedal steel, and brooms on a drum head. It’s a series of portraits and reflections that hope to make good on the intention set all those years ago when he sat down to write.
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Jenner Fox, Oregon, singer songwriter, musician, storyteller, folk, country, folk indie, garden rock, School Shootings, Columbine, "Alice", upcoming album "Good Luck Road", conceptual album,
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