Jeff Wall
Singer-Songwriter-Storyteller

BIGDUMBHICK

Jeff Wall, known to many as The Bigdumbhick, is an acoustic singer-songwriter-storyteller living in North Carolina. At 6’7” and somewhere around 300+ lbs., he’s certainly big. Usually seen in bib overalls, if he’s wearing anything at all, you might be excused for thinking he’s something of a hick, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that he’s dumb. That’s just a disguise. There’s a whole lot more going on here than first appearances might indicate.

A native of Middle Tennessee, Wall joined the Navy at age 18, to see the world and, as he says, find someone to date that he wasn’t kin to. He spent the next 20 years in uniform, traveling the globe, breaking bread, conversating, and playing music with people from just about every imaginable point on the political, religious, and social spectrum. He’s not nearly the hick he might portray himself to be.

After attending his first bluegrass festival, and taking in numerous campfire jam sessions, Wall quickly realized that it was much more fun to play music than it was to watch it. Upon retiring from the Navy, he settled in North Carolina, playing cover tunes in local bars. In 2015, he accidentally entered a monthly original music competition and wrote his first song. He made it to the final two of that competition, so the next month he wrote another song – and once again, he made it to number two. Finding himself in number two is an apt description of Wall’s musical career, but it wasn’t long before he had enough original material to record his first CD, 2016’s Love Everybody, and the world had yet another folksinger.

Drawing influences from bluegrass, country, blues, folk, and even reggae, his original material ranges from comedic complaints about the injustices of aging - “Erectile Dysfunction Blues,” “Battery Operated Boyfriend,” and “Will I Ever Get Laid Again”, to raw and deeply moving like “Help Me Mama, I Can’t Breathe,” “Choices,” and “New Wayfaring Strangers.” Wall is a uniquely gifted natural performer, delivering his songs with an authenticity that is all too rare these days. His lyrics will almost always make you chuckle, think, or even feel, while his voice will only occasionally make you wince. His sardonic, self-deprecating sense of humor serves as a perfect candy coating to help make that bitter pill of human existence just a little easier for us all to swallow.

His latest release, Bigdumbhick - Hard to Love Sober, is his fifth CD of all-original material, (not counting the book and compilation project Songs and Stories.) All of Wall’s musical influences can be found on this latest project -- from the rocking “Storm a-Coming” to the bluesy “Hard to Love Sober”; from the gospel soul of “Love Everybody” and the bluegrass-flavored “Move Back to the Country” to the hardcore honky-tonk of “Bodies in the Basement”; from the heartbreaking “I Am Not Here” to the tongue-in-cheek “It Ain’t Really Church (If You Ain’t Got a Snake”) -- with all of it anchored down by Wall’s piston-like bluegrass rhythm guitar playing.

Joined by such luminaries phenom Bluegrass fiddler Michael Cleveland; multi-instrumentalist Buddy Woodward (Dixie Bee-Liners, Kingston Trio); multi-instrumentalist Tom Hampton (Poco), Vocalist extraordinaire John Cowan (New Grass Revival; The Sky Kings, The Doobie Brothers); Guitar Wizards Phil Fuson (Itchy Bruddah and the Hater Tots), Joey Matteo (Big Daddy Love), celebrated old-time clawhammer banjo stylist Riley Baugus (Polecat Creek, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson) and his long suffering wife 0f 33 years, Alesia, who sang backup vocals and made sure that this album didn’t suck (with the exception of Wall’s mandolin playing... she couldn’t fix EVERYTHING)

Family Friendly Show - WDVX Blue Plate SPecial, Knoxville TN

adult late night show - Hatch Camp Art Farm, Clayton, GA

Video by Jim Sloan

contact: Jeff@Bigdumbhick.com