Month: June 2017

jason isbell, ‘the nashville sound’

the eagerly anticipated follow up to ‘something more than free’ was released about ten days ago, and i have been pouring through it ever since. a lot of the prerelease talk was about having a harder edge to the material, and that he was going to get a little more political. that didn’t exactly bode too well for me, as i tended to be a bigger fan of his ballads, and of course his ability to spin a tale like nobody’s business. but as he stated in a number of interviews, the last two albums were to a large degree a form of healing – writing about his past addictions and his new marriage. now that he is in a comfortable place in life, he had to find something else to write about. it seems to me that about half the material is written about other people dealing with life’s trials and tribulations, and the other half are his observations of the current state of affairs in our land. i think that it’s the latter where he either nails it or comes up a little flat. ‘if we were vampires’ – a lovely duet with his wife amanda shires – is a song about the prospect of living a long life together, and the inevitable prospect that eventually one them will die first. it is certainly one of my favorites of the album. the final track – ‘something to love’ – is a wonderful song about learning how to play music when he was a kid with his family, and is essentially an ode to their new daughter. the only song i really couldn’t get into was ‘anxiety’, a seven minute epic in the middle of the album that just seems to take all the momentum out of the flow.

overall though, i would say it is similar in quality to his last release from a songwriting standpoint. the 400 unit is in fine form here, and dave cobb is at the producers helm once again, recording in the historic rca nashville sound studio. as their marriage grows, so does the vocal interplay between jason and amanda. maybe not quite up to some of the classic folk or country duets yet, but they are getting there. they are on tour now, and i have some tickets in august. from what i have seen, they take the material to a new level live, and have also been playing some of his older material. ‘whipping post’, by the allman’s, has been a popular encore. go check ’em out.

‘long strange trip’

if you haven’t caught this yet, i think you should check it out. it is an extremely well produced documentary on the grateful dead. i saw it on the big screen at its debut, and have since then watched it via amazon at least a couple of times. i say ‘least’, because the streaming version is conveniently broken up into bite size pieces, usually around 45 minutes each. some segments i have watched more than others. it clocks in at four hours and is filled with all kinds of footage, some never before seen, plus an almost never ending soundtrack. for fans of the band, it is almost not long enough. for people not familiar with them, it might get a little long, but if you are an overall music fan and are interested in the culture of the sixties and seventies, i think you will find the story very compelling. for at the end of the day (and even though the band would dismiss such a notion), the grateful dead were very much an embodiment of the counterculture of those two decades. the documentary is not a glossy portrait of the band – it is an honest and thorough glimpse into the wonders and the dangers of a rock and roll life. they remain, in my mind, one of the quintessential american bands of all time.

john moreland, ‘big bad luv’

while we await the release of jason isbell’s album, i thought that it might be a good idea to look at another release by a guy i first heard of when perusing isbell’s site. there were two john moreland cd’s available, and i also noticed that he was an occasional opening act for jason. i bought both of them, and really liked them, but for some reason didn’t love them. i really dig this one. known in songwriting circles as an excellent purveyor of tunes that tug at the heartstrings (he is miranda lambert’s new favorite writer), this one doesn’t veer too far from that target. but he is recently married and that experience seems to have informed his work, in a slightly more positive way. like an isbell album, the first take is impressive, but the true depth of the lyrics become more profound as you listen to it a few more times. he sings these songs with a gravelly voice that is two parts ‘nebraska’ era springsteen and one part tom waits. the arrangements are definitely more fleshed out and varied. his usual touring partner in crime is multi-instrumentalist john calvin abney. his contributions here are significant. rick steff provides some great keyboard. it is a mature piece of work.

about twelve bucks online. the best twelve dollars you will spend today.