The Packway Handle Band

A wandering, soulful, alternative troubadour with a deep love of America's South and all its eccentricities, Jim White's old fashioned story telling comes with gothic overtones and eerie sense of mystery. A former professional surfer and Milan fashion model, White (real name Michael Davis Pratt) spent years roaming around and writing songs before being signed up to David Byrne's label Luaka Bop. His debut album Wrong-Eyed Jesus! (1997) was acclaimed as an alt. country masterpiece for its oddball characters and evocative imagery and came steeped in twanging banjos, haunting pedal steels and twisted tales of love, life, death and religion. It led to the BBC documentary film Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2004) in which White travelled through the underbelly of the South meeting up with people such as musicians Johnny Dowd and The Handsome Family and writer Harry Crews. White regards his best record as 2004's Drill A Whole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See, yet casts a more settled and happier figure on later albums Transnormal Skiperoo (2007) and Where It Hits You (2012).