On The Verge

David Wax Museum

Boston, Mass.
Mexican Folk Meets Americana
www.davidwaxmuseum.com

“I had never heard anything like it and was really taken aback by how vibrant it was,” says David Wax about first hearing Mexican folk music when he was a student visiting the country in 2001. Wax later secured a fellowship from his alma mater, Harvard, which allowed him to spend a year in Mexico learning to play this music that he had fallen in love with. He eventually started writing songs that merged the country’s roots music with the American folk music he had listened to while growing up. “The songwriting happened really organically,” he says. “I was doing things like taking a song I had written in an Americana vein and playing it on a Mexican instrument or with a Mexican rhythm.” With his jarana (a guitar-shaped stringed instrument) in hand, Wax returned to Boston, and formed the David Wax Museum in 2007 with multi-instrumentalist Suz Slezak. While working with a revolving group of talented musicians, it didn’t take long for the band’s Mexo-Americana sound—mixed with its unique instrumentation, glorious harmonies and vibrant Latin rhythms—to win audiences over.