Kamloops Teenage Blues Phenom Jake Soberlak Releases Debut Single, “You Gotta Leave,” Ahead of September Album, I’m In Trouble
At 17-years-old, Jake Soberlak of Kamloops, British Columbia plays the blues with the authority of someone who has lived inside the music for half a century. Today, the young guitarist, singer and harmonica player shares his debut single “You Gotta Leave,” the first taste of his forthcoming album, I’m In Trouble, arriving September 11, 2026. The song announces the arrival of one of the most compelling young voices working in Canadian blues today.
Soberlak’s path into the blues began with a discovery that reached across generations. Digging through a collection of his grandfather’s old records brought over from England, he found something scratchy, raw and utterly alive that grabbed hold and never let go. He followed the threads the way devoted blues listeners always have, one name leading to another, one record to the next, building a deep self-education in a tradition more than a century old. B.B. King, Peter Green and Eric Clapton became his teachers. He picked up guitar at thirteen and harmonica at fourteen, and word soon spread through Kamloops that something special was happening.
“You Gotta Leave” is an original Soberlak composition, and its origin offers a window into how completely he has absorbed the form. He wrote the song after hearing “Wine, Whiskey and Women” by Papa Lightfoot, a recording where the vocal sounds as though it is being sung straight through the harmonica microphone. Soberlak set out to write something where he could capture that very effect, channeling a vintage technique into a fresh new song. The result swaggers with confidence, anchored by a piano solo that he counts among his favourite moments on the entire record.
The lyrics carry the plainspoken directness that defines the best of the genre. “You gotta leave now babe go away from my door,” Soberlak sings, “it’s over now baby I don’t want you around no more.” There is a knowing assurance in lines like “won’t you tell me where you learned to be so cold,” delivered by a young artist who understands that the blues was always about connecting to something real and giving it your own honest take.
The single arrives from sessions that honour the way the great records were made. Soberlak cut his debut album at Afterlife Studios in Vancouver with producer and drummer Leon Power, known for his work with City and Colour and Frazey Ford. Power assembled a seasoned band for the dates, with Darren Parris on bass, the acclaimed Darryl Havers on piano and John Raham engineering. Every track went down live off the floor across two days, four musicians playing together in a room, capturing the spontaneity and feeling that the form demands.
For a teenager recording his first album alongside players of that caliber, the experience proved joyful and affirming.
“They’re all great people and great musicians, and it was so much fun,” Soberlak says. He approaches the music with a humility that runs deeper than his years. “Not all blues songs are sad,” he explains. “It’s really a reflection of life. I like finding songs from the 30s, 40s or 50s, these gems that I really connect with, and I enjoy giving them my own take once I’ve learned them.”
Soberlak has been building his live reputation across Kamloops and the surrounding region one room at a time, and his goals remain refreshingly uncomplicated.
“I just want to be playing music and gigging,” he says. “That’s all I want to do.”
That clarity of purpose runs through every note of “You Gotta Leave” and points toward a debut album that introduces a genuine old soul finding his voice.
Hi, Jake! Good to meet you! Care to introduce yourself to the readers for those not familiar with your music?
Thanks for having me! I’m a guitar player from Kamloops BC, and I play blues music. I’m mainly into Chicago blues – Magic Sam, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Elmore James, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson I and II, etc – but I love listening and playing all kinds of blues.
You’re 17, but your music comes from artists who recorded decades before you were born. What was it about the blues that grabbed you when you first heard those old records?
I think It’s the sincerity. Every song that Muddy Waters, or BB King sings, sad or happy you can tell in their voices that they really mean what they’re saying.
Finding your grandfather’s record collection seems like it changed everything. Do you remember the first song that made you stop and think, “This is what I want to play”?
The first record I put on was John Mayall and the BluesBreakers Crusade, and when I heard Mick Taylor’s solo on Oh Pretty Woman, I didn’t stop listening to it for about a month, until I learned it note for note.
One of the other ones I was (and still am) really into was Sleepy John Estes’ Broke and Hungry. There’s so much pain in his voice it almost sounds like he’s about to cry, and the guys he plays with are so good, Yank Rachell on mandolin – which you don’t hear a lot in blues but is such a cool addition – and Hammie Nixon on harp and jug, I just can’t get enough.
“You Gotta Leave” is your first original single. What gave you the confidence to start writing your own blues songs instead of just playing the classics?
I think it’s a natural progression, almost all of the people that I’m influenced by started off playing covers, but at some point I think you have to add something to the music otherwise why would anyone listen to your cover when they can listen to the original artist.
You’re introducing a lot of people your age to blues music. If someone hears the genre for the first time because of you, which classic artist or album should they listen to next?
There are a lot of different ways to do it, what I did is backtrack, I started with the British stuff from the 60s and then from those records found out about lots of the Chicago Bluesmen, and then started listening to the acoustic stuff, and pre war blues.
In saying that, I think BB King’s My Kind Of Blues, Magic Sam’s West Side Soul, Junior Wells’ Hoodoo Man Blues, would be a good place to start.