Meet Jackson Dean
When veteran artist manager TK Kimbrell approached us with a couple of recordings from a new artist he was working with, we were of course curious. Our history with Kimbrell dates back to the very beginnings of Takamine in Nashville.
“I’ve been working with this 20 year old kid from Maryland named Jackson Dean who sings pretty good and writes his own stuff” said Kimbrell matter-of-factly. Knowing TK as we do, we strongly suspected “sings pretty good” meant this Jackson guy was something special – and “writes his own stuff” meant music publishers were probably fighting over him. “Check these out”, said Kimbrell, “and tell me what you think”. At this part of this piece, we’ll ask you to do the same. The two songs were Don’t Come Lookin’ and Wings.
It was a while before we managed to listen to the awesome, Wings because very shortly after hearing Don’t Come Lookin’ we were on the phone with Kimbrell with our not-so-restrained reply: “We’re in!”
A bit to himself and not particularly pursuant to a music career, Jackson Dean gained attention only after a video of him singing the national anthem at his high school football game went viral. One thing led to another and soon Jackson was fielding offers from Music Row elites.
Fast forward just a tad. Jackson Dean has signed with Big Machine Records and TKO Artist Management and is sitting in a large storage locker in Nashville trying out a few new Takamine’s. The Martin Custom X Series that he plays, adorned with his definitive original artwork will always be a favorite and he also owns some cool Gibson’s, but Jackson knew he would soon be going live in a big way and needed a big acoustic sound to pull it off - and as it turns out, that’s how we can help.
After a while of giving each guitar a pretty good idea of what would be expected, Jackson and the P3D from Takamine’s popular 3 Series seemed to decide upon each other. And no sooner had new 6 string made it home than Jackson’s wood burning skills had adorned the cedar top, satin finish dreadnought with the stunning image of twin turkey feathers flanking either side of the sound hole, effectively sanctifying their artist / guitar partnership.
As expected the feather laden P3D has since earned a prominent role on Dean’s tour and we expect the ginormous voice of his newly acquired P6JC-12 will find its way into the set as well - perhaps via a song that didn’t even exist until the amazing jumbo cutaway 12 string gifted it.
We were tempted to say: ‘Every blue moon a talent like Jackson Dean comes down the pike’. But frankly, we will likely see many more blue moons before it happens again. Meanwhile, as the new artist’s career unfolds, Takamine Guitars is very proud to have contributed to the sharing.
To see how Jackson and his P3D are getting along, check out this solo acoustic performance of Love You Anymore. And for much more Jackson Dean Music, click here.
