Jake La Botz

Jake La Botz channels the eerie undercurrents of Americana associated with Tom Waits, shaping them into a more streamlined and direct approach built on plain blues progressions and a hazy late-night mood. As a vocalist he keeps things straightforward, without Waits’ raspy edge, allowing his understated phrasing to soften the oddball figures and tales that populate his recordings, an approach that reached its peak with the 2022 release Hair on Fire.

After relocating to Chicago in early childhood alongside his father—a truck driver, union organizer, and journalist—La Botz unearthed old blues and hillbilly 78s at the public library during his teenage years. He left school and spent time crisscrossing the country, taking on various manual jobs while sharpening his guitar technique. Back in Chicago he took to performing on sidewalks, studying with blues elders such as Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis and David “Honeyboy” Edwards, then set out once more, working stages in juke joints, blues clubs, and tattoo parlors.

His first album, The Original Soundtrack to My Nightmare, appeared in 1999, followed by Used to Be in 2002, All Soul and No Money in 2004, and Graveyard Jones in 2006. At the same time he began acting, landing a part in Steve Buscemi’s Animal Factory that featured him performing a pair of his own songs on camera. Subsequent film roles came in Lonesome Jim, Ghost World, Thirteen Moons, The Grey, and One Night with You, along with a recurring television part on Gilmore Girls. Later recordings that earned praise included Sing This to Yourself in 2008, I’m a Crow in 2010, and Get Right in 2013. In 2017 La Botz joined bassist Jimmy Sutton’s Hi-Style Records and issued Sunnyside, which contained the single “How I Wish She Was Mine.”