The award-winning Memphis-based family band Southern Avenue blends blues, soul, and gospel-flavored roots music. The group includes vocalist Tierinii Jackson, her sisters Tikyra “T.K.” Jackson and Ava Jackson, and guitarist Ori Naftaly.
The group formed after Naftaly moved from his native Israel to Memphis in 2013. They quickly gained recognition and released their self-titled debut in 2017 on the iconic soul music label Stax Records. That’s also the year they first came to KNKX Studios for a studio session.
As a group, they’ve earned five Blues Music Award nominations, and they won the award for Best New Artist in 2018. In 2019, they released Keep On and earned a GRAMMY nomination, and they’ve since released two more albums, the fourth and latest is Family on Alligator Records.
Long before all these musical successes, the three Jackson sisters, raised in a church-oriented household, were immersed in gospel music. From there, they each made the natural transition to blues.
“I feel like it’s not even much of a transition,” T.K. said “The core of what we do is speaking about our own life and experiences, and gospel music is the same in a lot of ways.”
Ava agreed.
“The spiritual aspect of gospel and blues are coming from the same place. Translating into blues from gospel is not too much of a difference. At its core it feels the same,” she said.
Family is clearly very important to the group; Naftaly and Tierinii are a married couple with children, and T.K. and Ava are Tierinii’s sisters. Their new album, entitled Family, tells the Jacksons’ story.
“I would say this album is a representation of the natural evolution of ourselves into becoming a band and a family,” T.K. said.
While Ava sang on the earlier albums, she joined the band full-time after she graduated from college. For T.K., Ava’s presence changed things.
“It feels much more wholesome. It feels complete. Vocally, I have more of a lower range, Tierinii does have a broad range but her strength is in the middle, ‘cause she’s the melody, the lead vocalist,” she said. “Bringing in Ava to complete the harmonies just elevated the show. The whole family, we’re super close, we all get along. So there’s nothing better than having more merrier Jacksons on the road.”
The primary songwriters are Tierinii and Naftaly, but T.K. and Ava are also involved, especially in writing their intricate vocal harmonies.
Beyond kinship, Southern Avenue’s music has a positive outlook and message that is reminiscent of The Staple Singers (“I’ll Take You There”), Bill Withers (“Lean on Me”), and Curtis Mayfield (“Keep on Pushing.”)
“I think we realized that our music does have this ongoing theme. And honestly, our music is really written to ourselves first,” T.K. said. “So we’re always going to be preaching to ourselves. I think naturally we come from a place of perseverance, we come from a place of strength. And we always want to keep that in the forefront.”
“I think that’s our natural disposition,” Ava continued. “You’re going to have trials and tribulations, there are a lot of things that are going to affect you in a negative way emotionally. Our music transmutes that heaviness into a feeling of freedom, a feeling of jubilation.”
Blues music is over 100 years old at this point, but the Jackson sisters see no end in sight.
“The truth never dies. The blues is such a historical part and basis of all music that I don’t think that energy and that authenticity is ever going to die,” Ava said.
T.K. said that she’s seen a resurgence of interest in blues with the release of the movie Sinners.
“When you give blues the representation that it deserves, it has an effect. It goes to show that blues is very much alive, and real, and it’s going to show up in ways that we won’t expect,” T.K. said..
Southern Avenue performs at The Triple Door in Seattle on August 30.
The core band is:
- Ori Naftaly - Guitar
- Tierinii Jackson - Lead Vocals
- Tikyra “T.K.” Jackson - Drums and Vocals
- Ava Jackson - Violin and Vocals
