I wrote to Jesse Ferguson asking him if there was any video of him playing a whole set. He seemed to indicate that there wasn’t. It’s remarkable. He has released four albums and he is incredibly talented, but he appears to only partially support himself from performing. That’s not a slight. One of my all time favorite bands (and probably the best punk band ever), Minutemen, did music part time. But it is sad that someone of such talent isn’t a bigger deal. Of course, he’s young and I’m sure he will only become more beloved over time.

He must also do teaching, because he has a number of instructional videos online too. I watched his video on bar chords. It was interesting, because I learned bar chords just over the course of long and painful failures. But he really systematized it. A couple of time while watching it I thought, “Oh, that’s why I do that!” This is particularly interesting given that in most things, I am the king of systematization. But clearly, not in music. I suspect he is a good teacher.

So given that I don’t have a set to offer you, I will go along with his suggestion and present one of his playlists. I’ve decided to go with his 21 Original Songs playlist. But I do wish he would get someone to shoot a 20 minute set at one of the festivals he plays at.

Afterword

Here is the list of the other songs we’ve featured this week:

• Smitten
• She Walks in Beauty
• Farewell to Nova Scotia
• Snowball Earth
• Alabama
• Zombie Love

We also featured him previously: Go Tell Aunt Rhody.

And as I mentioned, he’s released four albums:

1. New Old Songs
2. The Parting Glass
3. SHIFT
4. The Butcher Boy