Cue Online (Grahamstown)
Christina Kennedy
8 July 2009
Most young musicians kick off their performing careers paying their dues in dingy clubs and pubs. Not so Jesse Clegg: he has launched straight into theatres and concert venues.
“Go big, or go home,” he says, not altogether flippantly. His first public performance was at the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival this year; his subsequent shows were in a 1,000-seater theatre at the Joburg Theatre complex.
Now he’s playing large venues in Grahamstown too. But this Johannesburg-based singer-songwriter likes to dream in full technicolour instead of monochrome. It’s his contention that if you can dream it, you can be it. And two South African Music Award nominations by the sinfully young age of 20 bear out this fact.
Now that we have gone a full three paragraphs without mentioning his musical heritage or trotting out the “like father, like son” or “following in dad’s footsteps” clichés, let’s get the obvious out the way: Jesse Clegg is the son of South Africa’s very own mega-whopper world music superstar, Johnny Clegg.
So yes, music talent does run very strongly in the genes, and no, junior is emphatically not riding on daddy’s coattails to success. In fact, while they share a publicity and management company, any requests for a dual interview feature are met with a “Sorry, we want to keep their careers separate”.
Musical influence
Growing up in a musical household, and touring around the world with his dad when he was a nipper, Clegg was your archetypal “road kid”. Yet the music bug didn’t start nibbling until he was in his teens and, after initially resisting it with suspicion, he picked up a guitar and began messing around.
“I found that I enjoyed writing and expressing myself in a way that was comfortable to me,” he recalls. “It was a learning curve, and as I became more confident I made a conscious decision to pursue music when I was 16 or 17.”
Most of the songs on his debut album, When I Wake Up, were penned during his Matric year. “I was lucky to start finding my artistic voice quite young, but it was a total shot in the dark.”
Even though his dad was a “huge inspiration”, he was mindful that “if I was going to do this, I would do it my way. And in any case, my dad’s career was contextualised by a different period, and this is my own experience in a different time.”
Growing up listening to Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, he naturally evolved an acoustic-flavoured rock-pop style very different to that of his “White Zulu” dad. Little did he know that this experimentation would lead to him topping the charts. But songs such as debut single Today and follow-up Heartbreak Street have struck all the right chords with South African audiences and critics.
Success
“It was a huge surprise when the album did well,” says Clegg. “I’d never intended for it to be a commercial success; it was just me, figuring myself out – a personal thing. So it was a huge shock, although obviously I’d always hoped that people would like it.”
Remarkable for a debut release by a young musician, Today was one of the contenders for Record of the Year at this year’s SA Music Awards, and cracked a nod for Best Music Video.
He would like to try his luck on the overseas market, but first there’s a new album in the offing and he’s also continuing with his law studies at Wits University. “It keeps my feet on the ground; being a solo artist can be quite isolating,” Clegg explains.
Although his studies will provide him with that essential “back-up plan”, he’s no fickle fellow who will bow out once the gloss of celebrity has worn off. “I can’t see myself not being creative. I’ll continue to experiment with my sound and take it as far as possible.”
As he vowed during his recent Joburg performances: “This is the first step of hopefully a very long journey for me.”
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