Obituary: Jake Black, Scots musician known for Alabama 3 and the theme tune of The Sopranos

Died: May 21, 2019

JAKE Black, who has died aged 59, was a Scottish musician and songwriter who was most well-known by his alter-ego The Very Reverend D.Wayne Love, under which name he co-founded and sang with the country and acid house-inspired electronic rock group Alabama 3.

A raucous live favourite for more than two decades, Alabama 3 only broke either of the UK top 40 charts once, with their single Ain’t Goin’ to Goa in 1998 – yet their song Woke Up This Morning gave them lasting pop cultural success as the theme song to the television show The Sopranos.

Inspired by the story of a woman who stabbed her husband after years of abuse, Woke Up This Morning married a menacing groove with a growled lyric (“you woke up this morning / you got yourself a gun”) which threatened impending violence. Between 1999 and 2007 it played over The Sopranos’ opening sequence, as James Gandolfini’s fearsome mob boss Tony Soprano drove the streets of New Jersey.

Black was born John Black in Basildon, Essex, in 1960, the son of Madge and Bill, and the brother of Steven, Robert, Janice and Lynn. Raised on the Possil estate in Glasgow, he was a lifelong Celtic fan – in later life frustrating a music photographer when he refused to take off his replica strip for pictures, disrupting the moody Alabama 3 aesthetic – and was known to all as Jackie. When he moved to London years later, friends began calling him Jake instead.

As a young man in Glasgow, Black was involved in the punk and post-punk scene of the late 1970s and ‘80s, and was a contemporary of Orange Juice’s Edwyn Collins, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie and Creation Records’ Alan McGee. He played bass in punk bands the Dialetics and the Jangeletties, although he fell away from music for many years until the formation of Alabama 3 in 1995.

The group emerged after Black and Welsh co-founder Rob Spragg, aka Larry Love, met at a house party in Peckham. Calling themselves The First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine (UK), their combination of country and western, techno and southern American accents seemed like a contrary and deliberately career-sabotaging move at the height of Britpop, yet it proved to be perfectly in tune with the era of Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic heyday. After a name change and further honing, the duo and their extended band were signed to One Little Indian (also home to Bjork) for their 1997 debut album Exile on Coldharbour Lane.

Between 1997 and 2016 Alabama 3 released 12 albums and one compilation record, 2008’s Hits and Exit Wounds, and what they lacked in commercial success, they made up for in hard-working longevity and the love of a dedicated core of fans.

Much of the appeal, say those who know him, was down to Black’s polymathic ability as performer, writer, songwriter and actor. For two performances in 2017 he played William Burroughs in the play Cosmic Trigger at the Cockpit theatre in London.

Black – who was also friends with fellow working class Scot Irvine Welsh – was committed to social justice and working class political causes through his work, and Alabama 3 invited Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six to appear onstage with them. He performed guest vocals with The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Captain Beefheart's The Magic Band, and remained busy as a DJ outside of Alabama 3. Taking ill after a performance at the Highest Point festival in Lancashire, he died in hospital in London, and is survived by his siblings and a niece.

DAVID POLLOCK