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JD McPherson Celebrates Mardi Gras in ‘Jubilee’ Video

Rock and soul artist filmed the clip in New Orleans

[Rolling Stone]

By Marissa R. Moss

When JD McPherson released his Christmas album Socks last year, it became an instant classic for anyone who craved a bit of retro cheer — but the Nashville-based artist doesn’t confine himself to just one holiday. In honor of Mardi Gras, McPherson has released a video for “Jubilee,” a potent marching band drum-propelled ballad from his 2017 LP, Undivided Heart & Soul, that finds him driving through New Orleans during last year’s festivities and cutting a more solemn take on the bacchanalia, when all that’s left in the streets are a small brass band and some discarded beads.

Directed by Gary Hustwit (HelveticaI Am Trying to Break Your Heart), he and McPherson were inspired by photographer William Eggleston, looking more to the banality of life than what’s in plain, meme-able sight.

“New Orleans came up as a setting, we both just adore that city,” says McPherson. “We took the band down and shot a lot of crowd footage, set the band up in front of a bar, and stuck a bunch of cameras to Gary’s assistant’s 1980s Cadillac, and I just drove around the city, looking for ‘Jubilee.’  It was like being in a dream. The car handled as though it were floating on a cloud. There’s no other city in the world like New Orleans, especially during that time of year.”

McPherson will hit the road again this month, beginning March 27th in Kansas City, Missouri. He’ll play the rockabilly festival Nashville Boogie on May 26th. See his tour dates here.