Jim White ~ with opening set by Karl Mullen/ David Chernis

Jim White’s led quite the exotic life.

Before being discovered by Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, White was your quintessential nobody, a cipher existing on the fringes of the mainstream world. As he navigated a series of mental health crises White drifted through a succession of blue collar jobs ranging from ditch digger to asphalt crew laborer to suntan oil salesman. This quixotic daisy chain of low brow occupations culminated with White settling in behind the wheel of a taxi in New York City for a full decade.

It was while White was driving the cab that he began writing songs, basically as therapy. A poorly engineered cassette tape of White’s music was passed to Byrne by Daniel Lanois’s manager Melanie Ciccone. Intrigued by the odd spiritual narratives and outrageously lo-fi disposition of the recording, Byrne promptly offered White a recording contract, resulting in the release of The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong Eyed Jesus—widely considered to be a classic in the Americana genre.

White’s much lauded debut album served as the inspiration for the 2002 BBC4 documentary Searching For the Wrong Eyed Jesus, a poetic homage to the rural US South. This award winning documentary introduced White to a much wider global audience.

Since then White has released six critically acclaimed solo albums and five side projects, featuring artists ranging from fellow outlaw Americana denizen Johnny Dowd to West coast indie super producer Tucker Martine (Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens). When he’s not creating his own material, White occasionally produces other artists, including Americana bard Ben De LaCour and Venezuelan songbird Are Diaz.

Numerous songs from White’s extensive catalog have appeared in film and television placements, with Static on the Radio, White’s duet with Aimee Mann, appearing in the closing credits of El Camino, the Breaking Bad feature film finale.

in 2015 White received a Pushcart Prize award for short fiction for his short story Superwhite, a retelling of the series of uncanny circumstances surrounding he and David Byrne eventually joining forces. White’s debut novel Incidental Contact, a memoir which Mojo described as “unputdownable”, was released in 2022,

White’s a visual artist as well, having mounted a series of proper gallery and museum shows in the US and Europe, and his photography and paints have been featured on many his album covers as well.

In January of 2025 White released Precious Bane, his darkly romantic musical collaboration with unknown neurodivergent artist Trey Blake. Named Uncut Magazine’s Americana Album of the month, Precious Bane was widely praised both in the US and abroad.

White has resided for the last two decades in rural Georgia and is the father of two talented musician daughters, the eldest being Willow Avalon, a rising star in the country music genre.

Opening set: Karl Mullen of 5 Pound Horse-David Chernis from The Damnwells