Uploaded August 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Listen to Jerron Paxton's tactile and lonesome song, "What's Gonna Become of Me," from his album Things Done Changed. Paxton wrote "What's Gonna Become of Me" over years of late night meals with his grandmother, with melodies that mimic her hum behind the verses and draw from the driving thrum of the folk lute (Akonting) of the Jola people.

Purchase/Stream:
Smithsonian Folkways: https://folkways.si.edu/jerron-paxton/things-done-changed
Bandcamp: jerronpaxton.bandcamp.com/album/things-done-changed
All other platforms: orcd.co/jerron-paxton

Growing up in Los Angeles, Jerron Paxton would sit with an ear by the radio, eagerly absorbing the nuances and history of Black American traditional music that connect him to his ancestral roots in the South. A songwriter, inheritor of tradition, and a walking, talking jukebox, Paxton approaches his craft with equal part wit and reverence, with a knack for leg-pulling and cracking wise. Things Done Changed is an album of original songs that sound beamed in from nearly a century ago, when jazz and blues were performed as a means of both personal and cultural survival. Lick by lick, Paxton builds a bridge between generations gone and generations to come, singing the heartaches and joys of the past and present.

Jerron Paxton: jerronpaxton.com
Facebook: facebook.com/JerronBlindBoyPaxton
Instagram: instagram.com/jerron_paxton

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