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Jacob
Mohr’s Grass Roots, Genre-Shattering Approach to Music
“It was kind of a fluke incident,” Mohr explains. “I was just playing around for my friends. I didn’t even have a guitar; I was using a friend’s. I had sung since the age of four, but I remember swearing I would never play a barre chord, never play anything that wasn’t original material—typical youthful declarations out of foolishness. I did that whole living room, front porch thing. I was in the Waterfront Rescue Mission—a great organization, they help the local people—and this girl and me would always shop there. We were feeling a little amorous and found a dressing room. Ten or 15 minutes later, we walked out of there all quiet and there’s her friend, a guitar player, and he said, ‘We have a gig, but nobody to sing!’” That gig was at the tiki deck behind the Hampton Inn in Pensacola Beach. It was Mohr and another guitar player augmented by a female backup singer. The pay wasn’t much, but the trio ended up playing four afternoons a week and Mohr bid farewell to his job at the county tax collector’s office. “My former life was politics,” he says. “I was heavily involved in local campaigns and issue-oriented stuff.” Mohr continues to work for important causes. He and his band the Beach Mice—David Pretlow on guitar and violin, Brian Peet on drums, Drew Powell on bass and Mike Johnson on keyboards—performed at the recent benefit for Katrina victims at Gulf Place. The band itself is named for the beach mice in Perdido Key who were almost entirely wiped out by Hurricane Ivan. Ivan the terrible also brought Mohr back to Destin. His house gig in downtown Pensacola came to an unexpected end when the storm wrecked the club where Mohr was performing. Fortunately, a couple of the servers at the Blue Point Fish Club mentioned his name to the owners, and that led to Mohr playing at the Destin Commons hangout last August. He was offered a yearlong contract just two weeks later. Mohr loves to listen to current tunesmiths like David Gray and John Mayer, but a peek at his songbook includes golden greats by the likes of John Prine and the Allman Brothers. He puts his distinctive touch on material by Radiohead, Ryan Adams, and, inevitably, the maestro Bob Dylan. “I do Tangled Up in Blue, Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. That last tune works on any crowd any time—old or young. It’s one of those Destin songs, you gotta have it.” With the Beach Mice, Mohr gets a fantastic response to the old Doobie Brothers hit Black Water. “It really hits home with the Mississippi people,” he says. The Beach Mice are currently on hiatus from their March-October gig at Finz, aside from some private gigs and parties over the next few months. On his own, armed with an acoustic guitar and some inventively placed vocal effects, Mohr does a knockout version of Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight. Listen to him sing it and you won’t even think about Miami Vice or Tom Cruise and Rebecca DeMornay making love on a train. “It’s become my signature song,” Mohr says. “People are always asking me to do it.” There are other songs Mohr loves, some well known, others waiting to be discovered by open-eared music fans. “It’s about the song, not the genre. Every great story in music didn’t start with a marketing strategy. Probably my favorite song is Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. That sums up a whole life—the song is a novel. The Jeff Buckley version (from the 1994 album Grace) has the saddest note I ever heard. Another song I love that people really haven’t heard is True Companion by Mark Cohn. It’s the story of a couple’s life from when they meet to their wedding day to when they get old. Romeo and Juliet, the Mark Knopfler-Dire Straits tune—that’s my favorite to perform right now. Walking in Memphis (another Cohn song) always gets the crowd. Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt I do, rarely, as kind of a blend between the Cash version and the more rockin’ version.” But it’s the original songs that have added to Mohr’s loyal following. He finds little difference between music and politics. “You’re not trying to create a Jim Jones following, but it’s a grass roots campaign.” He describes the catchy South on 65 as “a snapshot in time, a quick pick at the lotto. Every word in that song was my exact feeling when I left Nashville. I finished a contract up there and just felt like I wanted to come home and spend time with my family. The lyrics are like ‘You know it’s that time of year when spring has sprung…’ That tune has potential for a regional hit. Some country artists like George Strait mention places, usually Texas. There’s something about that road (I-65) I’ve been up and down so many times. ‘I’ve been dreaming of you again…it’s been so long since I even heard your name…my toes are nearly in the sand.’” One of Mohr’s most requested compositions, Fulton County, was also inspired by real life. “Of my songs, it has the most traction. It’s a story about a DUI. I never got a DUI, but I still call it a true story, because I had a scrape with the law. Let’s just say I lived the song. It’s about what’s important and what comes back to you when you’re waiting for someone to bail you out. Even if you’re only in there for a couple hours, it’s harrowing. You find out who your friends are. People can definitely relate to it.” The other song on Mohr’s Internet site (www.jacobmohr.com) is Your Eyes Are Wide, which the artist describes as “a love letter to the city of Nashville. I mention some landmarks like West End and the Vanderbilt section of town. It’s a pretty tune.” He says the song is particularly good when he performs the three-part harmonies with bandmates Peet and Pretlow. “Brian and David are great singers—the three of us together is amazing. It’s hard to find that in bands.” With roughly 60 compositions under his belt and a broad range of musical influences, the genre-shattering Mohr knows his way around a tune. “There’s nothing like life to give you something to write about,” he says. “The creative process is its own reward—taking something tangible from something intangible. You wanna talk about creationism, there you go!” WHO? Jacob
Mohr—guitar, vocals, witty between-song patter. |
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Fort
Walton Beach native Jacob Mohr first experienced live music at
the age of five during a bluegrass festival in Navarre. He grew
up playing drums and singing in church choirs. After graduating
from a Christian school and attending Okaloosa-Walton College
for “a little bit,” Mohr began playing gigs and hasn’t
looked back since.Copyright © The Beachcomber, Inc. 2003 - 2008. All rights reserved.