Posts Tagged ‘Jason Isbell’

JASON ISBELL – ” Hope The High Road “

Posted: July 31, 2017 in MUSIC
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With an artist like Jason Isbell, the bar gets set higher and higher with each and every new album, creating a tough hurdle for his upcoming release The Nashville Sound. Though he established himself as one of the all-time greats songwriters with his previous band Drive By Truckers and so far over the course of three solo albums,  Isbell ripped his heart right out of his chest and slapped it on your turntable so you could hear every ounce of pain and sorrow, every ounce of joy and happiness, that he had experienced up until that point. The grooves of his arteries showcased a delicate artist, one who could capture the story of falling in love in a matter of minutes, or highlight the depths of pain that cancer brings to a relationship.

This isn’t to say that Isbell wasn’t doing this exact same thing on his debut solo record, Sirens of the Ditch, or the following two albums, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit and Here We Rest. His debut rings eternal with tracks like “In a Razor Town” and “Brand New Kind of Actress,” while the self-titled LP brought with it unforgettable journeys through “Cigarettes and Wine” and “No Choice in the Matter.” Here We Rest produced many fan-favorites to this day, including “Alabama Pines” and “Codeine,” among others.

There was something about his songwriting on Southeastern that perhaps felt more accessible than ever before with new and old fans alike, and since 2013, the expectations for Isbell have continued to rise to seemingly unachievable levels. Yet, a couple of years following Southeastern he met and exceeded those expectations with the Grammy-winning album, Something More Than Free. And now, in 2017, Isbell is facing the most anticipation he has likely ever faced in his career with the release of The Nashville Sound.

Jason Isbell is a master storyteller, he’s also a master autobiographer, and opening The Nashville Sound is a pensive look at, potentially, his own career and life. As he sings “Am I the last of my kind?” over and over, he’s asking an honest question, one that could easily be applied to the musical world in which he lives.

JASON ISBELL – ” If We Were Vampires “

Posted: May 19, 2017 in MUSIC
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Singer-songwriter is joined by wife Amanda Shires for powerful meditation on love and death from ‘The Nashville Sound’ Jason Isbell has always recognized how joy is meaningless without pain, and that life’s real beauty lies not in the promise of forever, but in treating the ephemeral with the delicacy and respect it deserves. That knowledge is what makes “If We Were Vampires” the newest single from his forthcoming LP The Nashville Sound, so affecting: it’s a love song dosed heavily in reality, packed both with the gut-wrenching truth that death is the inevitable divider and the powerful conclusion that immortality would actually render true passion pointless.

“It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever, likely one of us will have to spend some days alone,” sings Isbell alongside harmonies from his wife Amanda Shires to some understated acoustic guitar. Isbell’s love songs are savvy enough to exist outside of fantasyland even at their most intense: though Southeastern’s “Cover Me Up” finds two lovers shunning the world in favor of each other, it’s not without knowledge that something, somehow, will force them to leave the comforts of a private embrace. “If We Were Vampires” though heartbreaking in its honesty, offers our limited lifespans not as a terrifying bookend, but a qualifier that makes love worthwhile. As Isbell puts it, “maybe time running out is a gift.”

The Nashville Sound will be released June 16th via Southeastern Records/Thirty Tigers.

JASON ISBELL and the 400 UNIT – ” Cumberland Gap “

Posted: April 30, 2017 in MUSIC
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One thing that Jason Isbell doesn’t always get to do is just rock the hell out. As a former member of Drive-By Truckers, and now as a solo artist, one picture of Isbell is as a thoughtful and introspective dude who documents the whole “Southern thing” as well as anyone going, while kind of keeping the amps dialed down.

That couldn’t be further from the truth on “Cumberland Gap,” the second single from his soon-to-be-released sixth album. With his former band The 400 Unit backing him up, Isbell blazes through the dusty and abandoned trails of the titular Appalachian pass. The song’s character at every turn and every squall of guitar is just trying to get out of Dodge. A small town’s bars are no longer an escape but another form of oppression. There’s not much wealth to be spread around. The mines have shut down, and one of the few opportunities for employment is to go fight in some bullshit war. It’s as though the man of “Outfit” has stuck around for too long and the realization has hit him like a ‘69 Chevy with a 396 going 80 mph. The Cumberland Gap swallowed his daddy up, and now it’s doing the same to him. It’s certainly one of the more darkly affective tunes Isbell has crafted, and absolutely one of this year’s best rock songs.

The Nashville Sound is out June 16th on Southeastern Records.

JASON ISBELL – ” The Nashville Sound “

Posted: March 26, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Jason Isbell’s breakout album Southeastern was a fairly introspective affair, an occasionally harrowing portrait that chronicled his efforts to get sober after years of indulging in the demon rum.

On “Hope The High Road,” the lead single for his new album The Nashville Sound, Isbell declaims that he’s “Heard enough of the white man’s blues/ I’ve sang enough about myself/ So if you’re looking for some bad news/ You can find it somewhere else.”

The track, a resilient display of no-nonsense rock and roll, acknowledges the hard road that was 2016, but insists there will be no “fighting with you down in the ditch,” perhaps a reference to the chamber of despair that social media has become. Instead, the song imagines the prospect of a better day achieved through the moral perseverance of kindred spirits.

Watch the video for “Hope The High Road”

JASON ISBELL – ” 24 Frames “

Posted: December 28, 2016 in MUSIC
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Drive-By Trucker-turned-solo artist Jason Isbell has been doing fairly well for himself since going solo, if you ask us. Isbell  released this year a new record, Something More Than Free, and if his new single is any indication, it’s going to be a much more modern-sounding album than we’ve come to expect from him. Isbell shared “24 Frames” with his recognizable twang (and the sweet backing vocals of his wife Amanda Shires) , the song recalls another of Athens, Georgia’s favorite sons–R.E.M.–with its instantly recognizable jangle. According to Isbell, that was intentional. “It kind of sounds like the way indie rock sounded when I was 15,”

“24 Frames” below. “Something More Than Free” .

JASON ISBELL – ” Live at A Prairie Home Companion ” 12th November 2016

Posted: November 19, 2016 in MUSIC
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Over last weekend, Jason Isbell became the latest Americana heavyweight Country Rock artist to appear on the newly reincarnated Prairie Home Companion, now hosted by roots musician  Chris Thile.

Jason Isbell Singer-songwriter plays solo versions of “Speed Trap Town,” “24 Frames,” “Cover Me Up” and “Something More Than Free”

Isbell’s chilling rendition of “Speed Trap Town,” one of the highlights from his 2015 album Something More Than Free, It was one of four songs the singer-songwriter played during the historic radio show’s live taping in Philadelphia. In addition to “Speed Trap Town,” Isbell delivered flawless, solo acoustic renditions of favorites from his last two records, including “Something More Than Free,” “24 Frames” and his signature “Cover Me Up” from Southeastern. Watch them all here below.

“A lot of people in Nashville think that the best song is the catchiest,” said Isbell last year. “They’re editing songs in a way that make them seem more consumable. I’m trying to edit them in a way that makes them more honest.”
Isbell will continue his heavy year of touring with select dates throughout November and December, wrapping up 2016 with a New Year’s Eve show alongside John Prine and Kacey Musgraves at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville.

JASON ISBELL and AMANDA SHIRES – ” The Colour Of A Cloudy Day “

Posted: September 9, 2016 in MUSIC
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Jason Isbell and wife Amanda Shires have released an acoustic duet titled “The Color of a Cloudy Day” for Amazon’s Amazon Acoustic playlists, which features exclusive songs written by some of today’s top songwriters. The song is a rare collaboration between the pair, who frequently join each other on stage but almost never co-write.

“Usually we only help each other edit songs that we write individually,” Isbell said. “This song deals with crime and punishment. The protagonist isn’t exactly innocent, but he isn’t guilty of the crime for which he’s being punished.”

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JASON ISBELL – ” 24 Frames “

Posted: August 1, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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“Something More Than Free” is available on the 17th July through Southeastern Records,  How does a song move from a notebook to your headphones? This behind-the-scenes video of Jason Isbell perfecting the song “24 Frames” — the first single from the new album “Something More Than Free”,  sits the viewer right inside that process. After a bare-bones delivery from the songwriter, he and producer Dave Cobb work with Isbell’s band, the 400 Unit, to add in colours  some guitar delay, a “Leonard Cohen ‘Hallelujah'” style bass line — to turn a contemplative moment into an inspirational one. “I’m gonna let your inner ’90s dude come out,” someone says offscreen, supporting Isbell’s claim that this follow-up to the universally acclaimed Southeastern will capture “the way indie rock sounded when I was 15.” It’s the way rock sounds now, too, in these good hands.

Returning with his fifth full-length, Something More Than Free, just a week ago, and now, the singer-songwriter has premiered a music video for the album’s title track, please check it out above.

The new James Weems-directed visual is reflective of the message Isbell relays in “Something More Than Free.” The clip follows three characters as they make their way through the work that defines their days, as the former Drive-By Trucker sings, “I don’t think on why I’m here or where it hurts / I’m just lucky to have the work.” It’s a moving clip fitting of the rich and thoughtful songwriting that earned Jason Isbell’s  release a place on our list of 2015’s best albums thus far.

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Jason Isbell and his band, the 400 Unit, are currently on tour, they have dates scheduled through mid-October, plus a four-night residency at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium from Oct. 23rd-26th.

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Earlier this year, Isbell was nominated for the Americana Music Association’s award for Artist of the Year. It’s a stacked category that also includes Rhiannon Giddens, Sturgill Simpson, Lucinda Williams and Lee Ann Womack; winners will be announced during the ceremony on Sept. 16th.

 

 

JASON ISBELL – ” Something More Than Free ” Best Albums Of 2015

Posted: July 3, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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This former Drive-By Trucker has been steadily and quietly improving since he first went solo in 2007, and we’re now to the point where he completely overshadows his old band. This album does a great job showing why. Isbell’s lyrics are warm and incisive and empathetic — quick, economical sketches of people in go-nowhere towns who rarely get to hear themselves depicted with this level of real-talk dignity. And his music is intuitive and lived-in. Isbell’s miles-deep baritone can be conversationally pleasant on the verses, but when he hits the chorus, it always wells up into something huge.

Jason Isbell — Something More Than Free (July 10th, Southeastern Records)

Former Drive-By Trucker Jason Isbell is one of alt-country’s most reliable voices, particularly in light of his modern classic Southeastern. To follow-up that 2013 LP, Isbell reunited with its producer, Dave Cobb, for a collection of songs that examine life’s small details and big questions with the same level of astounding sincerity and humble wisdom. Isbell oftentimes sounds like frequent tourmate Ryan Adams during his Cardinals era, particularly when Isbell strips down his sound and lets himself get real blue in the spirit of the Southern literary tradition (see “Speed Trap Town,” then have a good cry). But he also sounds quite different (and traditional, in a classic country sense) when backed by a full band, oftentimes topped off by a piano, a fiddle, and strings.

JASON ISBELL and AMANDA SHIRES – ” Sea Songs ” EP

Posted: February 14, 2015 in MUSIC
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Jason Isbell and his wife and fellow musician Amanda Shires have released a digital-only two-song EP called Sea Songs. Featuring covers of Lykke Li’s “I Follow Rivers” and Warren Zevon’s “Mutineer,” the EP is stripped down and intimate, the pair’s knack for vocal harmonies underscored by Isbell’s guitar and Shires’s fiddle.

While Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires gear up for a March recording session with producer Dave Cobb whose Nashville studio has helped spawn some of the decade’s best roots albums, including Isbell’s “Southeastern“ this Americana power couple is tossing a bone to fans who’ve waited nearly two years for follow-ups to “Southeastern” and Shires’ last solo effort, “Down Fell the Doves“. This week, they’re releasing a digital EP, “Sea Songs”, whose two tracks splash the duo’s harmonies against a backdrop of acoustic guitar, fiddle and maritime themes.

Sparse and lovely, “Sea Songs” has a lot in common with the pair’s cover of “Born in the U.S.A.,” a highlight from last year’s Bruce Springsteen tribute album “Dead Man’s Town”. This time, Isbell and Shires are putting their sonic stamp on Lykke Li‘s “I Follow Rivers” and Warren Zevon‘s “Mutineer,” stripping the songs free of nearly everything — including Li’s computerized bleeps and bloops, and Zevon’s swooning synths — but the melodies and chord progressions.

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Recently, Isbell announced a run of tour dates with the 400 Unit in April and May, presumably after wrapping up his fourth solo album with Cobb.

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