even though he is from alabama, for various reasons jason isbell decided to do an album dedicated to artists from the peach state, and invited a slew of musicians to help give it a diverse approach. with his standard recording and touring band, the 400 hundred unit (named after a nickname for a pychiatric ward in florence, alabama), they tackle many genres and succeed at most.

they kick off with r.e.m.’s ‘night swimming’, with bluegrass artists bela fleck on banjo and chris thile on mandolin. up and coming vocalist brittney spencer gives an interesting twist to james brown’s ‘it’s a man’s man’s man’s world’.

jason does his best to do otis redding’s ‘i’ve been loving you too long’. ‘sometimes salvation’, a black crowes standard, features their original drummer steve gorman.

indigo girls’ ‘kid fears’ is presented by brandi carlisle and julien baker, and brittney spencer returns to join john paul white (civil wars) on a compelling version of gladys knight and the pips’ ‘midnight train to georgia’.

they turn in a respectable version of ‘in memory of elizabeth reed’ from the allman brothers, and then close out the session by returning to r.e.m.’s ‘driver 8’, one of my favorites of theirs.

there are five other offerings here, but you get the point. worth a listen if you can find the time.

coming up this weekend, my annual look back at the year that was, where i give my honorable mentions on stuff i listened to but never got around to posting.

stay tuned.

we were introduced to seth james by guitarist bob britt, a good friend of the founder of the company i work for. when originally introducing him to our group, bob said something to the effect of ‘not only is he a great musician, but a great person as well’. in his subsequent interview i was convinced that bob was right. dressed in western gear and a big cowboy hat, he regaled us with his stories of growing up in west texas on a horse ranch, and the life lessons he learned there.

by looking at him, i was expecting that the music would be somewhere in the country vein, maybe even the red dirt country genre that is based in that area. but i really could not have been more wrong. growing up on that ranch, he didn’t have access to radio while on a horse. and so he listened to albums from a very wide swath of influences, from chicago blues, memphis r&b to new orleans funk.

and all those influences are readily apparent throughout the entire album of fourteen tracks. it opens with ‘mamarita’, a big funky song with a new orleans/dr. john style piano up in the mix. next up is ‘solid gold plated fool’, written by delbert mcclinton. if you are a fan of little feat, this will sound right to you. ‘she likes to run’ is a song where it is hard to tell if he is talking about a horse or a woman. ‘raisin’ kane’ is a cover of a j.j cale song that not even he recorded. it was a demo that was given to seth. and lord knows we could use some more j.j.cale in this world.

seth either writes or cowrites most of the songs here, and i think his work continues in the fashion of the great writers from texas. the overall arrangements are catchy and inviting. as mrs. redeyegin said, ‘i can dance to that’. the horn charts are great, and the backup singers provide even more punch.

seth is a long time fan of delbert mcclinton (even touring with him), and the band here is to a large degree borrowed from delbert (including bob britt on rhythm guitar). they sound like they have been playing together for a long time, mostly because they have. i think you will enjoy it.

many times in my life i will get an interest in a particular musician or genre and go down a rabbit hole for a while. i can’t remember exactly when i went down the bluegrass rabbit hole, but it was certainly in the early nineties, and one of the albums that likely triggered my interest was the 1992 grammy winning ‘at the ryman’ by emmylou harris and the nash ramblers. the concert’s and album’s high acclaim are given near-universal credit for the renewed interest in reviving the dilapidated ryman auditorium as an active venue after nearly 20 years of dormancy. soon after, the building was completely renovated and has since become a world-class concert hall.

although the band was not technically built as a bluegrass band (their grammy was for best country album), they incorporated a lot of bluegrass elements to many of the songs. emmylou harris had been touring with her ‘hot band’ lineup for a few years before this, and she wanted to go in a different direction. the ramblers were all acoustic, and featured a number of well known musicians, most notably sam bush on violin and mandolin, roy huskey jr. on bass, and al perkins on dobro and guitar. the vocal blendings were stunning. i could go on and on. it is a near perfect presentation and i never grow tired of it.

so i was pleasantly surprised as i was driving back from chicago a couple of weeks back and heard that they had a new release coming out. i was listening to the ‘buddy and jim show’ on the outlaw country sirius station, and they had most of the surviving members of the band being interviewed about circumstances around the recording. (by the way, if you are an americana genre fan, buddy miller and jim lauderdale are great hosts and you will learn so much). this show happened about a year earlier than the ryman show and has almost entirely different material. all the members had not remembered it being recorded and had forgotten about the show. an archivist from rhino records discovered the tapes about a year ago and brought it to emmylou’s attention. as she says in the liner notes, they didn’t have to fix anything. the recording (and the playing) were so good they left it as is.

it is a great companion piece to ‘at the ryman’. if you know that one, this is a no brainer. if you don’t, and you like emmylou, get both.

dig the hair!