News

Jack Black gets his country on

3:32 p.m. · January 2, 2009 · by Jim Allen

Based on Tenacious D and School of Rock, you might think that when it comes to music, Jack Black is strictly the arena-rock guitar-hero type. However, as Black has just revealed in an AP interview, "I've got some hillbilly in my roots." That hillbilly hops out when Black sings the traditional country/folk tune "Old Joe Clark" on the recent Charlie Haden album Rambling Boy. Legendary bassist Haden is the father of Black's wife Tanya Haden, and papa gathered all three of his daughters, including Rachel and Petra, to sing old-timey tunes on the Grammy-nominated album, but when Black heard an instrumental version of "Old Joe Clark" he couldn't resist laying down a vocal for it. Now the country-croonin' comic seems to have an incurable case of honky-tonk fever. "There was something in the music that I think struck a chord in my DNA," he said. "I'm already practicing my square dancing if we play the Grand Ole Opry."

[AP]