Premiere: Jon Patrick Walker - Blackwater Street

Actor and musician Jon Patrick Walker is about to release his new, fourth, album – The Rented Tuxedo & Other Songs (June 12th). Best known for playing King George in Hamilton On Broadway for 18 months, Jon releases a new single from the album, Backwater Street, tomorrow and we’re delighted to premiere it here on Backseat Mafia today.

Although Rented Tuxedo is a tribute to his favourite band The Who, BLackwater Street sits closer to the likes of Nilsson, his vocal sweet and affecting as he coos over unrequited love (Why do I feel invisibly? / What will it take to make her see me?), and his songwriting engaging and personal. Echoey guitar and bass open proceedings, but it flowers into this psych-tinged affair, with drums and lead guitar lines adding depth. The melodies and Walkers delivery has a touch of the Bowie about it. And that’s very much a good thing.

Of the record, Walker told Backseat Mafia “I wrote this song when I was living in London a few years ago. As a confirmed Anglophile, I was totally enchanted by London, and especially our neighborhood (East Dulwich), and loved walking around, taking photos, listening to a lot of Kinks and Beatles. There was a Blackwater Street around the corner from us, just off Lordship Lane, and one day the line, “She’s got a flat on Blackwater Street, and I’m looking for a room to let” came into my head, so I created a story about a “Lonely Heart” who is in love, very much from afar, with a girl in his neighborhood. There was a local butcher shop on the corner, and so I included that detail in the lyrics. The song represents the memory of a very happy and creatively fruitful chapter in my life. We (Producer Roger Moutenot and I) recorded it in Nashville in January. We struggled a bit to find the right feel, changed the key, did some tweaking of the structure (for instance creating an intro from what had been only a bridge), but I am very happy with how it came out!”

Check it out, here