Jack Rose

An inventive and self-taught musician on acoustic six-string, 12-string, and lap steel guitar, Jack Rose belonged to the Takoma revivalist circle whose work recalled the often Eastern-tinged acoustic experiments of John Fahey, Robbie Basho, and their peers. His own path began far from that lineage, however, as a rock- and punk-rooted electric guitarist in the Richmond, Virginia drone trio Pelt. The group issued a string of albums from 1995 onward, yet Rose, while still a member, launched a parallel solo career on acoustic guitar with the self-released CD-R Hung Far Low in 2001. That same year Eclipse Records brought out Red Horse, White Mule; 2002 saw both the CD-R Dr. Ragtime and the Eclipse album Opium Musick; 2004 produced Raag Manifestos, issued on LP by Eclipse and on CD by VHF Records; and 2005 brought Kensington Blues on Eclipse/VHF. In 2006 Eclipse released Heraldic Beasts, the live recording Skullfuck/Bestio Tergum Degero, and Jack Rose & the Black Twig Pickers. Beautiful Happiness paired Red Horse, White Mule with Opium Musick for the 2004 compilation Two Originals Of and, in 2008, combined Dr. Ragtime & Pals with Jack Rose & the Black Twig Pickers—the opening installments of the trilogy Rose wryly labeled his “Ditch Trilogy.” His rising profile ended abruptly with a fatal heart attack on Friday, December 4, 2009; he was thirty-eight. The trilogy’s final chapter, Luck in the Valley, appeared on Thrill Jockey in February 2010. Weeks afterward Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth issued the tribute album 12 String Meditations for Jack Rose.