What They Don't Tell You About the Blues: Lessons From Southern Avenue

Two Roads to the Same Groove

Southern Avenue is one of the most compelling bands in modern blues, and the story of how they got there is anything but typical. Singer Tierinii Jackson grew up in a strict Pentecostal household in Memphis, singing in church five days a week. Guitarist Ori Naftaly grew up on a beach in Israel, studying blues guitar with an American expat who had played with James Brown and Tina Turner. They met in Memphis, built a band, earned two Grammy nominations in contemporary blues, and recently wrote music for Ryan Coogler's film Sinners.

In this conversation from DelFest, they talk about mentorship, authenticity, concept albums, and the responsibility that comes with playing a tradition you were not born into. For guitar players, there is a lot here that goes well past the standard "practice your pentatonics" advice.

The Mentor Who Changed Everything

Ori was drawn to the blues before he could explain why. He was playing it by age three or four. By eight, his father had tracked down a teacher in Tel Aviv: Tony Pearson, a guitarist from Birmingham, Alabama who had played jazz in New York, toured with James Brown and Tina Turner, and ended up in Israel after marrying Tina Turner's makeup artist.

Ori studied with him for ten years.

He's really shaped my understanding of what the blues is. He's like a dad figure for me for sure. I wouldn't be here without him.

That phrase, "understanding of what the blues is," matters more than it might seem. Ori later describes playing blues that is "mine and not appropriating it," and credits Tony for making that possible. A mentor does not just hand you licks. A mentor hands you context: where the music came from, what it means, what the unwritten rules are, and how to find your own place inside the form.

Takeaway for your playing

• Find a teacher who teaches you the why, not just the what. Scales without context produce players who sound like everybody else.
• Ten years with one mentor beats ten years of random YouTube videos. Depth of relationship produces depth of playing.
• Go to the source material. Ori and Tierinii both talk about living inside the tradition rather than skimming it.

Church, Honesty, and Why She Left Gospel

Tierinii grew up in a house with six kids and a long list of things that were not allowed. Church on Sunday, Bible band on Tuesday, choir rehearsal Wednesday, kids choir Saturday, testimonial service Friday.

All the rules felt so oppressive. I only felt God's presence in music. That was the only thing that really saved me.

She became the quiet one, the good kid, the one who got the solos. Then she graduated high school and wanted to write about actual life, which got her in serious trouble with the church. Her reasoning is one of the clearest statements on songwriting you will hear:

In the church they only sing about the glory of God, which is great, but then they pretend they're perfect and nobody tells you the real stuff. As a kid going to elementary school, I'm not in a battle with Satan. I have a crush on a kid. I have a fight with my friend. These are the things I write about.

That is the whole blues ethic in a sentence. The genre survives because it reports on real life without flattering anybody. If you write songs, the lesson is to write from the specific and unglamorous rather than the grand and abstract.

A postscript worth noting: her parents stayed away from shows for years because the church pressured them. After the Grammy nomination, they decided to sit front row and clap for their kids.

Writing Songs for a Movie Called "Grilled Cheese"

When the offer came in to write for a secret Hollywood project, the working title was "Grilled Cheese." The description was vampires and blues. They said yes anyway. The film turned out to be Ryan Coogler's Sinners, and Tierinii's song "Burnside" made the cut.

The creative brief she was given is worth stealing:

Whatever parts of this story that you connect to, write songs about.

She wrote three songs in a day. Her framing was that anything she manufactured without a personal connection would be worthless, so she only wrote from the places where the story genuinely overlapped with her life. Growing up unable to go to the movies, she then took her parents to a theater to see a film she had helped score.

For players and writers: constraints plus a genuine emotional anchor produce faster and better work than open-ended "write something good." Give yourself an assignment with a story attached.

Why Memphis

Ori arrived with a suitcase, a guitar, and a Tube Screamer, in town to represent Israel at the International Blues Challenge. He expected the South to be a desert. Instead he found a small, dense, absurdly connected music community.

If I lived in New York, the chances of me making it into an event with Robert Plant are zero. But Memphis is small and it brings the biggest talent in. We got signed to a major record deal playing in a club in Memphis. We didn't need to go to LA.

He also points out something musically specific: in Memphis, the hip-hop, the grunge, and the blues all share a sonic fingerprint. The city is, in his words, somewhat frozen in time because it is foundational to American roots music, and the culture is actively kept alive rather than evolved away from.

Memphis has also been hard on them. They were robbed. They lost bassist Blake, who is immortalized on the record Family, and who handed the gig to his own backup player, Matthew Wilson. Tierinii's take: "Memphis is the reason why I have the grit that I have."

Ignoring the Cool Kids

Southern Avenue got signed roughly six months after forming. Early on, they faced the question every developing band faces: lean into the blues, or chase a more modern, funk-leaning, commercially fashionable sound.

Everybody tells you, oh, you're the cool kids, you can do so much. But people are only going to connect to who we really are. It's not cool to try to be the cool kids. I'm a band nerd. Be the band nerd. Do what you know how to do.

This is the single most useful idea in the interview for working musicians. The thing that makes you connect with an audience is not versatility for its own sake. It is the specific, slightly unfashionable thing you actually do better than anyone else.

Ori adds a nuance worth holding onto: over a long career with ten or twenty albums, there has to be change. Their earlier records had a different genre on every song. On Family they consciously narrowed the focus. The move is not to pick one sound forever. The move is to pick a sound for this record and commit fully.

The Case for a Concept Album

Family was played live on the road for two years before it was recorded, which is how the band tested it: fix the awkward parts, keep what audiences loved. By the time they reached Royal Studios with producer John Burke and Boo Mitchell on the board, they cut five songs live on day one.

They also wrote it as a concept record, telling the story of how the band came together from beginning to end.

When you go to a writing session, we know what we're writing, we know what the next story is about. You can write for chapter one, chapter four, chapter three. It ends up being a lot more easy to do.

In an era of singles and playlist cherry-picking, a concept is a practical creative tool rather than a nostalgic gesture. It removes the blank page. It gives every session a target. And it gives the live show a narrative arc, which is the part they spent the last year and a half figuring out: how do you take an album that tells a story and make the concert tell the same story.

Playing a Tradition You Were Not Born Into

Asked what it is like to be an Israeli at the center of American blues, Ori does not dodge:

The blues will forever be a genre that was created in a very, very hard environment. It will forever be American traditional, like a museum. It's always going to be there. And I'm always going to be a guest.

That is why, he explains, the band writes originals rather than reproducing the canon note for note. He connects to the music through his own history ("my people were slaves in Egypt") while staying clear-eyed about whose house he is visiting. He became an American citizen in March 2025 and still describes himself as a guest in the form.

Both of them also stay out of political fights online, which they describe as "poison." Ori's response to foreign audience members who want to debate him about American politics is to ask whether they like their own prime minister. Usually that ends the conversation.

What's Next

Double down on the blues, specifically Hill Country blues. Tierinii has spent three or four years deep in Mississippi Fred McDowell, the Burnsides, Jessie Mae Hemphill, and traditional gospel. She wants more of the folk element too, the kind of singing where the harmonies carry the whole song with no instruments at all. She also, publicly and strategically, would like to co-write with Billy Strings.

Five Things to Take Into the Practice Room

• Learn the context, not just the licks. Study where the music came from and what it meant to the people who made it.
• Write from real life. Specific, honest, unglamorous detail beats grand abstraction every time.
• Road-test material before you record it. Two years of live performance told Southern Avenue exactly what worked.
• Pick a concept. A theme gives every writing session a clear job and makes the work faster.
• Be the band nerd. Chasing what seems cool produces forgettable music. Doubling down on your actual identity produces a career.

Southern Avenue came from nothing, as they put it, with no rich parents and nobody investing in them. What they have instead is a sound that belongs entirely to them. As Ori says, the best feeling is to fail knowing you did your best, and not somebody else's best.