Jacksonville’s Jeremy Marshall Blanton Delivers the Goods with “Strange Cargo”

The title track from Duval singer-songwriter Jeremy Marshall Blanton‘s Strange Cargo EP dropped in mid-October and it’s a certain gem for anyone seeking local musical treasure.

While Blanton has worked with estimable area acts including Robert Lester Folsom, Dean Winter and the Heat and Strangerwolf, the flavors Blanton serves up on his debut EP are surely his own. The intro to the title track from Strange Cargo features a casually cookin’, syncopated melody, an impressive aesthetic tint of the superior work from 1970s-era solo Jerry Garcia.

Blanton was born and raised in Jacksonville, and “Strange Cargo” recounts a common decision for many restless outcast locals: getting the hell out of Jacksonville. Over the course of the musical travelogue of “Strange Cargo,” Blanton hits all the whistle stops for peripatetic musicians: New Orleans, Memphis and the ever-vast “California coast.”

Blanton has undeniable skills at songcraft, with lyrics like “Started making idols of all of these sinners / hit the big prize for picking winners” that would have made Townes Van Zandt grin out of defeated solidarity. A tale of picking up, letting go and getting “tired of the void between,” delivered with certain musical skills by multi-instrumentalist Blanton, with humble restraint courtesy of drummer Ty Sullivan, “Strange Cargo” is a well-received curveball from a certain talent on the local music scene.

More New Music

You can hear new tracks from Jeremy Marshall Blanton, and music from local, regional, national and international artists on our music discovery station The Independent 89.9 HD4. And you can follow our Fresh Squeeze playlist on Spotify to stream all the best new music, updated every month.