Jacki Stone Wishful Drinking
Jay Blakesberg

Premiere: Jacki Stone Exorcises Pain in Her New 'Wishful Drinking' Music Video

Jacki Stone sips a glass half full of whiskey instead of water in "Wishful Drinking." The song is from her new album Like Hell It's Yours (El Hefe Music), the follow-up to 2017's California is Country, Too EP.

The music video for the song shows Stone exploring California's wide open spaces while exorcising past burdens. She tells a story about living it up while trying hard to forget with country melodies and throwback folk-rock music. A bluesy modern revision of '90s honky tonk might've suited this emotional roller coaster, but instead we get an authentic blend of an eclectic songwriter's West Coast influences.

"'Wishful Drinking' is a raw and vulnerable song with a gentle hint of kiss my ass, and I wanted the music video to be a visual match to that feeling," Stone says. "My first experience of this song was Don (my songwriting partner) and I, sitting on the floor with our notebooks and pens strewn about, arranging these beautiful lyrics. I wanted to bring that to the audience with the intimate, acoustic moments that are in the video. The nature and beautiful scenery shots in the video are a mix of the 'I'm doing just fine without you'/'actually, this is sad'/'kiss my ass' conflicting flavor of the song."

The Slimmer Twins (Vic Steffens and "The Record Rabbi" Michael Caplan) produced "Wishful Drinking" and nine additional tracks on Like Hell It's Yours. Their handiwork includes the Tom Petty style storytelling of "Slow Down Easy" and the raw Southern rock homages "Red Light Fever" and "This Side of Blue." Grammy-winning blues man Keb' Mo' produced the songs "Crazy Man" and "Victims of Comfort." Each track builds on California country and roots music's proud history—from Hollywood's singing cowboys to the Bakersfield Sound, folk rock, country rock, cowpunk and contemporary Americana.

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