Gary Clark Jr. is Way Beyond the Blues on ‘JPEG RAW’

Anointed a blues-guitar prodigy before he was old enough to drive, 40-year old Austin, Texas, native Gary Clark Jr. has spent much of his career thinking outside his primary genre, and his latest, JPEG RAW, sounds more than ever like the music Clark wants to make rather than the music folks think he makes.

Since as early on as his second album, the underrated 2015 collection The Story of Sonny Boy Slim, Clark has embraced everything from fuzzy rock to funk to Prince-ly psychedelia. JPEG RAW continues his never-ending quest for new fire, as he works with longtime collaborators (guitarist Zapata, keyboardist Jon Deas, bassists Elijah Ford and Alex Peterson, and drummer J.J. Johnson) as well as some iconic veteran ringers (see below). Dude is definitely in his everything everywhere all at once era.

After Clark’s 2017 cover of the Beatles’ “Come Together” (perhaps the only positive thing to come out of the Justice League movie) became a pop hit, his diverse 2019 album, This Land, felt like something to build on once he hit the road, but Covid kept him at home and, like the rest of us, antsy.

Started during lockdown, finished in the last year of Clark’s thirties, and co-produced by longtime Austin collaborator Jacob Sciba, JPEG RAW is both a musically dense snapshot of an American stoner dad just trying to focus in a world that allows for anything but, and an album that amalgamates an array of sounds, influences, riffs, and samples while still finding room for the searing guitar solos that made his reputation.

Opener “Maktub” skips and swings like a muzzy Malian desert blues track, Clark and Zapata stacking up guitars while a frustrated Clark declares “We gotta move in the same direction,” leaving the listener to guess where. The title track (which refers to a type of digital photography format) folds in samples of the Jackson 5’s “Maria” and Thelonious Monk’s “Hackensack,” while tracing a couple from a pregnancy to parenthood. 

Stevie Wonder brings his voice and a Clavinet hook on “What About the Children,” while George Clinton throws down on the laid-back banger “Funk Witch U..” On the epic, multipart closer “Habits,” Clark starts off sounding like Jason Isbell, a fellow roots rocker who, like Clark, has expanded the limits of his sound as often as possible. And lest you think he forgot his roots, “Don’t Start,” with guest vocals by Valerie June, and “This Is Who We Are,” featuring singer Naala, do what Clark does best, making thunderous blues sound like the music of tomorrow.