Jefferson Berry & the UAC Release “First Purple Light” AI Music Video

“First Purple Light” is a song from the 2023 Prairie Fire album by Jefferson Berry & the Urban Acoustic Coalition, their third album in four years. It is also the third video collaboration between Jefferson & Provoke Film’s Ciro Ayala.

Coming off of their Best Folk Music Video win at the California Music Video Awards for “We’ll Soon Be Together,” “First Purple Light” exposes the scourge of domestic violence in our society. While beautiful, this video may be disturbing (or even triggering) for some folks. The project supports the Domestic Violence Hotline.

“First Purple Light” is played by Jefferson Berry on vocals and acoustic guitar; Bud Burroughs on mandolin; Dave Brown on lap steel; Uncle Mike on bass; and Tim Kelly on percussion. As with the band’s previous albums, Prairie Fire was engineered by Matt Muir at Retro Studios in the Germantown neighbourhood of Philadelphia.

For this video, Jefferson Berry scripted the A.I. storyboard and, along with the lyrics of the song, Art Director Ciro Ayala applied six different A.I. programs to execute that script. Joe Schufreider managed the camera and lighting of the band’s performance, which was shot at Lafayette Hills Studios just outside Philadelphia.

Berry comments:

“When approaching social justice themes with my songwriting, I’ve come to see story telling as more than just lyrics and musical arrangements. Americana Folk will always be about storytelling, but with the domestic violence that ‘First Purple Light’ exposes, Artificial Intelligence makes these kinds of stories vivid and the healing more apparent.”

Jefferson Berry & the Urban Acoustic Coalition combine storytelling in the Urban Folk tradition with the intricacies of jam band and Roots instrumentation. Playing a variety of guitar styles, Berry’s projects bring a danceable style and contemporary point of view to Philadelphia’s local music scene. With the release of his third album in four years, this reputation is spreading nationally.

Berry’s lyrics are informed by his years in corporate media, followed by a dozen years teaching African American History, Economics and Government to inner-city Philadelphia high school students. Symeer Woods (aka Lil Uzi Vert) and the late Rasheen Jones (aka Runup Rico) were among his students.