MY TIME SPENT WITH JESSIE EVANS ~ Fanzine Brasil

By: Juliana Vannucchi

“When a human awakens to a great dream and throws the full force of his soul over it, all the universe conspires in your favor". - Goethe.

In early July I had the great opportunity to spend a few days at the home of singer-songwriter Jessie Evans, who currently resides in Ubatuba, on the coast of São Paulo, Brazil. Before I went there I didn’t know her personally so I was anxious and slightly apprehensive about meeting her, cause after all, I did not know exactly who I would meet and what our relationship would be like. Fortunately, everything went perfectly well and I was positively surprised by Jessie, who has such a big heart and is very kind.

During the time I spent with her, we talked about a lot of cool and normal things, like dreams, dogs, UFOs, Buddhism, football, politics, etc. I discovered that she and I have many things in common, and in a way, a very similar way of looking at and understanding existence. We have a very similar vision of the world. All of this was was great to realize since nowadays it is very rare to find people with an open mind, questioning, critical and non-alienated like Jessie.

A good time with friends

I can assure you that she provided me very satisfying moments that I will keep with me for all the eternity. I discovered and explored wonderful things about her that were new to me. It was definitely very interesting to live in her world for a few days and absorb a little of it. It has done me good and it will help me grow and be inspired.

I learned new things about her. I did not know, for example, that Jessie practiced Yoga in the mornings - admirable. I also did not know that she drove a VW van (the same as my friends). She also told me that David Bowie saved her life, and it happened in a deeply mystical way. I also found out a little about her mother’s life, who played drums and wrote wonderful poetry. I even read some that was compiled in a booklet. We also talked about Masaru Emoto's intriguing research, which shows how our emotions can affect the reality around us - this was a big surprise, how could I know that Jessie knew this researcher, which I really appreciate?

Her art is a mechanism by which she seeks to bring joy to people

What I found was a cheerful person, immensely kind and welcoming, inspired by the subtlest details of life, a nature lover and one that gave me very pleasant moments. My brief living with Jessie Evans and her husband was enough to understand the reasons why her artistic productions are so profound, charming and contagious: because as she told me herself, her art is a mechanism by which she seeks to bring joy to people.

She's definitely one of the most authentic artists I've ever met. Her productions and her daily life are far from the media manipulation and marketing demands of the music industry. In other words, Jessie is not the kind of person who allows herself to be shaped by the numerous external impositions of the monstrous cultural factory that invents (pseudo) artists and creates songs in laboratories, always aiming for profit; she's not cliché, she's a real artist.

At one point, on one of the several days of my stay in Ubatuba, I talked to a kind neighbor of Jessie who told me an interesting phrase, which I decided to write down immediately after listening, and which I want to share with the readers: “Nowadays, people only copy and don’t create". This phrase, unfortunately, translates this poor artistic-cultural context that prevails nowadays, in which originality is often replaced by standardization. It is a period of decadence, in which there are much product and little truth, art is losing its aura, losing its space. But of course, there are still some truly talented souls to save us, as is the case with the exceptional Jessie Evans.

Official albuns

I do not see Jessie as a person to be idolized. I hate idolatry, because, inspired by the Nietzschean thinking, I believe that when we idolize something/someone tend to create idealizations and at the moment we idealize, we leave the real world, only to cling to illusions, and therefore idolatry can be harmful. It would be offensive to say that I see her like this (like an idol), even because a humble person like her would never put herself on a different level from the others. After all, Jessie also values and gives attention to others. Honestly, I believe she does not want to be idolized, she wants to be valued. And that's what she has of me: I value her. And before I value her as an artist, I appreciate the great human being she is, the sister who has become for me, the caring mother that she is in her daily life, the caring wife she is, and the adorable way she treats animals.

For those who are interested: For more information about the cultural industry, I suggest reading The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility and general studies on the Frankfurt School, specially the thoughts of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Understanding this subject helps - and greatly - to better understand what exists behind the scenes of the current music industry.