Jason Ringenberg has been hailed as the “Godfather of Americana” with Rolling Stone magazine noting his band Jason and the Scorchers, “singlehandedly re-wrote the history of rock and roll in the South,” the band receiving the Americana Music Associations Lifetime Achievement Award. He’s also delved into the world of children’s music, his PBS mini-program “It’s Farmer Jason” earning him an Emmy.
All that started in Illinois. Ringenberg (11/22/58) grew up in western Illinois where his parents owned a family hog farm. His education would lead him to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale where he would form his first bands.
“I truly learned the art of live performance at S.I.U., playing in the bars on the strip and at parties in the dorms, Ringenberg recalls.
“My first foray into the professional music world was a bluegrass band called Gary, Jason and Chico. I played banjo, very poorly, in that outfit which lasted about six months in 1979. In 1980, I formed Shakespeare’s Riot, an early punk rock/cowpunk band doing some originals and covers of the current punk rock and New Wave bands popular at the time,” along with some Dylan, Tom Petty and introducing some of Ringenberg’s original material, including the S.I.U.-influenced “Buckminster Fuller We Need You Now.”
That lineup would last about a year. “The spring of 1981 we formed a rockabilly band called The Catalinas,” he remembers. “We did shows all over Illinois.”
It was the birthday of America, July 4 in 1981 when Jason decided it was time to move to Nashville to pursue his dream of “making a band that could kick American roots music into the modern age!” And Jason and the Scorchers were born. Actually, he first called the band Jason and the Nashville Scorchers, although they dropped Nashville off their name after their first release.
Their ability to combine traditional country music with high-energy punk rock carved out a new music genre which prevailed for nearly two decades through the ‘80s and ‘90s breaking out in 1983 with their debut album Fervor and “Hot Night in Georgia” https://youtu.be/BFsRdiW0ADUsetting the tempo of what to expect from Jason and the Scorchers. They would continue with hits including “Golden Ball and Chain” https://youtu.be/2A658iBAvNw and “Absolutely Sweet Marie” https://youtu.be/p-cF40OWeakamong others.
Jason and the Scorchers hit some roadblocks in the late ‘80s. Their record label took more control of the production of their album Thunder and Fire, steering the band in a different direction. “The songs were more metal-influenced,” the band said. Their fans revolted. That, coupled with band member Perry Baggs being diagnosed with diabetes and unable to continue to tour. “We didn’t break up, we fell apart,” noted band member Warner Hodes. (The band would re-unite in 1993 and continue on for another four years inking a deal with the Walt Disney-funded Mammoth label. They would reunite one more time in 2010 with some new band members in the fold.)
In 1992 Ringenberg went solo, continuing to carve out his place in the alt-country honky-tonk arena.
Ringenberg would take control of his music in Y2K forming his own label Courageous Chicken.
In 2002 Ringenberg would create a children’s music character called Farmer Jason. It initially started out as a project to entertain his young daughters singing about farm animals and the appreciation of nature. It developed into not only a series of children’s albums, but a PBS program “It’s a Farmer Jason” that earned him four Emmy nominations and one win.
In 2017 the U.S. National Park Service invited him to be their Artist-in-Residence at Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park. There he would spend a month hiking the mountains and writing songs.
Returning to Illinois, Ringenberg would turn those songs into the album Stand Tall. “In fact, I got some of my old bandmates together (Tom Miller and Gary Gibula) to record my album in southern Illinois using southern Illinois musicians,” produced by Mike Lescelius at the Misunderstudio in Murphysboro. “That record was one of my most successful solo albums,” he says.
This past year Ringenberg has teamed with Victoria Liedtke from the noise pop group Hey! Hello! on the project More Than Words Can Tell (Judee Bop) in the UK.
In 2002, Courageous Chicken Records released Wildfires and Misfires: Two Decades of Outtakes and Rarities, which contained much previously unreleased material from throughout the band’s history. Ringenberg would release one of his own with Best Tracks and Side Tracks 1979-2007 that included the track “Help, There’s a Fire” from his days with Shakespeare’s Riot.
The Americana Music Association honored Jason and the Scorchers with their Lifetime Achievement Award in the Performance category in 2008.
Regarding Jason and the Scorchers band members, after the first breakup, Warren Hodges moved Los Angeles to work in the video industry. Jeff Johnson moved to Atlanta to work in the auto and motorcycle repair business, Ken Fox would go on to join The Fleshtones and Perry Baggs remained in Nashville working on Christian music projects. Diabetes would take Baggs life in 2012 at the age of 50. Ringenberg and Hodges would reunite earlier this year in a concert in Nashville as a benefit for Jeff Johnson who was felled by a stroke.
Discography
Jason and the Scorchers
1982 Reckless Country Soul (Praxis 003) EP
1983 Fervor (Praxis 6654)
1985 Lost and Found (EMI America 19153)
1986 Still Standing (EMI America 17219)
1989 Thunder and Fire (A&M 5264)
1995 A Blazing Grace (Mammoth 0101)
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” https://youtu.be/h7d7W27yIEE
1996 Clear Impetuous Morning (Mammoth/Atlantic 92730)
1996 Restless Country Soul (Mammoth 0127)
1998 Midnight Roads & Stages Seen (Mammoth 354980180)
2001 Rock on Germany (Courageous Chicken 002)
2002 Wildfires & Misfires: Two Decades of Outtakes and Rarities (Courageous Chicken )
2010 Halcyon Times (Courageous Chicken 0001)
Jason Ringenberg
1992 One Foot in the Honky Tonk (Liberty 96797)
2000 A Pocketful of Soul (Courageous Chicken JMR 001)
2002 All Over Creation (Yep Roc 2036)
2004 Empire Builders (Yep Roc 2076)
2008 Best Tracks and Side Tracks (Courageous Chicken/Bittersweet 052))
2019 Stand Tall (Courageous Chicken 016)
2020 The Roots of Stand Tall (Courageous Chicken 017)
2021 Rhinestoned (Courageous Chicken 018)
Farmer Jason
2003 A Day at the Farm with Farmer Jason (Courageous Chicken 72730/Yep Roc 2055)
2006 Rockin’ in the Forest with Farmer Jason (Courageous Chicken 74738)
2012 Nature Jams (MyKazoo Music 16420)
2014 Christmas on the Farm with Farmer Jason (Courageous Chicken 015)