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Local Music Mondays is a weekly segment produced by WUKY's DeBraun Thomas. Check here for archived episodes, extended interviews, and extras.

Local Music Monday: Melissa Tree Jackson

For this week’s Local Music Monday, WUKY’s DeBraun Thomas features a native who moved away and is now back home making music.

Melissa “Tree” Jackson is a native of Lexington who moved back in 2010 after 10 years playing in bands on the east coast.  Growing up in church is where she first found her love for music. Jackson says as a singer there is a lot she learned to appreciate in church.

“I love to harmonize, it’s like my favorite thing in the world, more than singing lead to be honest, when we would sing in church you know, I would always try to find that little pocket and sing really loudly and my parents would tell me to calm it down or my sister would poke me, aside from material wise, I love the honesty in old hymns.”

Jackson was part of the vibrant music scene in the 1990’s and in moving back became part of the music scene again in 2011 with the band Small Batch. In Small Batch Jackson shares lead vocals with Warren Byrom and Reva Williams. Jackson says the band’s sound comes from a shared trait among the three singers.

“Reva’s voice and singing style is extremely soulful, Warren’s is as well, I think that’s the one area most that we all sort of connected, our singing, sorta the way we pull it up from our toes a lot, we all have that in common.”

Melissa “Tree” Jackson performs the band Small Batch. Small Batch is currently working on an album to be released sometime in 2015.

More information about Jackson and the band can be found here.

DeBraun Thomas fell in love with radio at a young age but only had interest in working in radio after learning Funk musician Sly Stone got his start in radio. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Thomas moved to Lexington in 2009 to attend the University of Kentucky and pursue a career in radio. Thomas joined WRFL in 2009 and through the UK school of Journalism, Thomas had 2 features air on WUKY. In October of 2012, Thomas began interning at WUKY and produced the Unghosting of Medgar Evers. In August of 2013 Thomas became a staff member at WUKY and since that time, Thomas regularly produces the weekly segment Local Music Mondays which highlights local musicians in Lexington. Thomas hosts the Crunkadelic Funk Show which airs Saturday nights at 9pm and also produced a documentary on the 50th anniversary of the March on Frankfort. In addition to producing and hosting a radio show, Thomas also explores his other passion as a musician in Lexington.
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