Cary Pierce’s ‘Back Again’ is that joyous morning-after to Jack O’Neill’s ‘Cadillac Kings’ evening spent dancing with ghosts, the juxtaposition of dark and light reflected in their own deep pool journeys.
Jack and Cary started playing together at SMU in Dallas, TX, when music was shared via mix tape, not mp3. They’d spend the next 10 years recording albums and touring the world, sharing stages with the biggest names of the era.
Those names don’t matter here. There’s does. Jackopierce.
Their inaugural decade ended in a short-lived sabbatical, with Jack heading to New York to pursue acting and Cary embarking on a solo career. The duo reunited 5 years later, shook the dust off, and launched another twenty-year run of successful albums and tours, bookended by sold-out shows featuring an all-star backing band (Vertical Horizon, anyone?) and popular destination events.
Along the way, Jack and Cary’s personal journeys followed turns and drops unique to them, but familiar to us all. And now, as this river meets the next, both peace with the past and excitement for the forward-view is palpable.
And best heard through their songs. Take a listen.
But not because they’ve been making music together for over 30 years, or because of their half-million albums sold, or late-night talk show appearances, or influence on an entire genre of acoustic-driven rock.
Listen because these two theater-major undergrads, with headwaters in the same late-80s collegiate mountain range, have stumbled over their own stones and through their own canyons over the last three decades.
And now, they meet again, where their power and beauty is the greatest. Here, at the confluence.
