Jake Blount

Blount was born and raised in Washington, DC.[1] His family is interracial; his mother's family originates in Sweden and Jersey, and his father is Black. Blount and his older sister, Julia, attended Georgetown Day School. His parents, Jeanne Meserve and Jeffrey Blount, were television news professionals. He began learning to play electric guitar at age 12, and played in rock bands with his peers. Influenced by a chance encounter with Megan Jean and the KFB, Blount delved into acoustic music in the latter half of high school.[3]

Blount enrolled at Hamilton College in 2013, where he focused his studies on early African-American folk music. He received his first banjo lessons from Lydia Hamessley, who would become his advisor, and delved into old-time music.[3]

Blount first received widespread recognition within the old-time community in 2016, when his band The Moose Whisperers won the traditional band contest at the Appalachian String Band Music Festival in Clifftop, West Virginia.[4] In mid-2017, Blount graduated from Hamilton College with a B.A. in ethnomusicology, released his debut EP, Reparations, with fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves,[5] and began to tour in earnest. The Moose Whisperers put out their self-titled album in early 2018 and embarked on a release tour in Scandinavia. Upon returning, Blount and Hargreaves opened several shows for Rhiannon Giddens.

Blount and fiddler Libby Weitnauer formed the duo Tui on a tour of Australia in late 2018. They released their album, Pretty Little Mister, in 2019.[6] In the following year, Blount appeared on Radiolab and was selected as a member of the International Bluegrass Music Association's Leadership Bluegrass Class of 2020.[7][8][9] He also claimed first place in the banjo contest at the Appalachian String Band Music Festival, competing with tunes from Black banjoists Nathan Frazier and Dink Roberts.[10]

Blount released his debut solo album, Spider Tales, on Free Dirt Records on May 29, 2020. It debuted at #2 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart.[11] The Guardian declared the record "an instant classic," and awarded it five out of five stars.[12] Bandcamp selected it as their Album of the Day, and it received positive coverage from NPR, Rolling Stone, Billboard and more.[13][14][15][16] In an interview with Country Queer, Blount stated that the album "came out of a desire to tease out the sort of anger and demands for justice and resentment that I see simmering in the black traditional music canon throughout history," and was intended to contradict preconceived notions about Black folk music.[17]

Shortly thereafter, Blount was prominently featured on NPR's Weekend Edition in a segment regarding traditional musicians and their efforts to address racism within the canon.[18] Blount is a 2020 recipient of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize.[19] Following the award announcement, Blount was interviewed by Hunter Kelly for Apple Music's Proud Radio show.[20]