It's a case of bad news and good news for fans of Kerri Watt. The bad news being that the album that has spawned three magnificent singles so far has been delayed until 2021. To do it justice, it needed to be released with the full promotional push that only a live show can provide and anyone that has seen Kerri perform her new material with a band knows just how compelling a sight that is.
The good news is that to ensure her fans get maximum "Watt"age in the intervening months, Kerri has decided on releasing a series of 3 Chapter EP's,
this year with "Jessie" being the first track of Chapter 1, Each of Kerri's Chapters will focus on a different genre of music that inspires her songwriting and with "Jessie" it is a definite blending of two. pop and folk.
"Jessie" provides an interesting insight into Kerri's storytelling songwriting process for it finds it's initial inspiration from a character Lucy from Leslie Bricusses "Jeckyll & Hyde". From there we ger a somewhat cautionary tale, a folk ballad if you like in many ways, but Kerri's pop sensibilities are never too far away and so this somewhat dark tale is matched to an exuberant bouncy chorus.
Jessie's tale is sketched in quite bold strokes, everything we find out about her places her on an inextricable path to an early grave "Jessie was a girl of the night with auburn curly hair Jessie sang and danced for rogues and regals", she's abandoned by her family and gets by dancing in a seedy "dirty dying bar".
Musically as stated earlier, the verses are an uptempo folk song, with Kerri's Scottish timbre coming through quite clearly, over a mix of guitars, drums and harmonica. Once we reach the chorus things shift up a gear and a key into a chorus that is impossibly not to enjoy, and yet on closer inspection, there is still lots going on, just listen to the way Kerri phrases "Give the boys a smile It's just a job" taking on the persona of those at the bar.
As if all this was not enough ( and frankly it should be ) there is also another of Kerri's engrossing videos to accompany the tune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaASRldOp8U