Redemption (Jason Isbell)

When excess and stubborn pride diminish a man's life to a point of near zero, the first step in redemption is to admit a lack of control; to recognize and confront weakness. In Rock, where careers are built on ego and gluttony, redemption and adoration are hard to find simultaneously. If you take the bottle of liquor out of a Rock Star's hand and strip him of self-destructive bombast, what's left?

Jason Isbell had to figure it out. The scion of a musical family and a natural talent, in 2001, Isbell found himself leading the Drive By Truckers' southern-fried 3 guitar attack at age 22. He endeared himself to a half-generation of Southern music fans with timeless statements of the "Dirty South" such as "Outfit" and "Decoration Day." While former DBT mates Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley focused on the South's grimy underbelly, Isbell's approach was more nostalgic and down home. Where Hood focuses on anthemic statements of Southern mystery and faded glory ("Sinkhole," "Ronnie & Neil"), and Cooley on loners and crooks ("Women Without Whiskey," "Cottonseed"), Isbell was more the rebellious teenager feeling his way while raging in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot ("Goddamn Lonely Love," "Never Gonna Change"). It was never really a square fit, and Isbell left DBT in 2007 to walk alone.

It was a long and painful road littered with plastic liquor bottles, small crowds, and self-destruction. Success did not find him quickly, substance abuse set in, and Isbell came to represent one of Cooley's desperate loners. The gutter was deep, but thankfully not too long. Things started to turn with the release of 2011's well-received Here We Rest and its memorable sing-along highlight, "Codeine." During the sessions for Rest, Isbell fell in love with now-wife Amanda Shires and sought out sobriety. He found it, probably saving his life in the process. Building off of the success of Rest, Isbell sharpened his focus, embraced sobriety, and moved boldly in the right direction. For a former Drive By Trucker, facing the world solo with an acoustic guitar in hand and his back to the bottle must have been daunting.      

With the release of 2013's critically-acclaimed Southeastern, things have come full circle. Instead of running from his past, Isbell used it as fuel for great music and a better tomorrow. On album highlights like "Tired of Traveling Alone," we see a man with his weaknesses on full display. Haunting album opener "Cover Me Up" provides an immediate admission of vulnerability; elsewhere we find fear of death (barroom rocker "Super 8") and intrigue ("Elephant"). Hardly abandoning his Muscle Shoals / DBT roots ("Flying Over Water"), Isbell is comfortable, and effective, with a Martin acoustic in his hand ("Live Oak"). The result is a superb tour de force that serves as a necessary component of, and stirring testament to, Isbell's ongoing quest for redemption.

I saw him play the Georgia Theater recently with his backing band, the 400 Unit, and he looked and sounded great. This is not a man on shaky ground; there's no apparent apprehension of falling back into the Hole. Watching the taut 90 minute set, I saw a traditionalist that would have been as comfortable at Johnny Cash's Sun Studio as he would jamming at Muscle Shoals with the Stones (this night brought a solid rendition of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking"as the closer). Eschewing displays of virtuosity on the guitar in favor of more terse solos in the Carl Perkins mold, Isbell is a natural and enigmatic showman. He shows an appreciation for his audience instead of rebelling against them; engaging them instead of prodding them. While his DBT songs remain the crowd-pleasing centerpieces of the set (a scorching "Never Gonna Change" was this night's highlight), his solo material continues to gain traction on its merit. What I saw was a healthy, rejuvinated, and vital artist nearing the top of his game; a man who is comfortable in his skin in a way nobody could have expected when he was passing around a handle of Jack Daniels at 1:40 a.m. in his DBT glory days. It's inspiring to watch a man who has confronted and conquered self-destruction, with the battle serving to fuel a vital new period of his art.      

SOTW - September 27, 2013 - Tigers Come to Town ("Fearless")

The Big Game. It's a Southern bit of greatness. For seven precious fall days, dusk becomes a bit cooler and anxiety rises like a bottle rocket. There's an omnipresence in the air that occupies Everyone's minds, whether they will admit it or not. The clock ticks ... slowly ... towards Friday at 6:00 p.m. Then, and only then, we can focus 100% of our attention on The Big Game. At some point, you've read every available bit of analysis and breakdown. For better or worse, the world will be temporarily but sharply different at 8:00 p.m. Saturday night; this much we know. Will they or won't they? Do we have enough defense? Can they stop us? Is Murray over the hump in Big Games. Who have they really played? Will the crowd show up? Will this be Clemson, or South Carolina? Is Mettenberger for real? Are we really favored. Will The Hat do something crazy? The Tigers are coming to town. They are good. So are we. At some point, the matter must be left to skill and chance and strength and nerves and luck and sweat and strategy and all the infinite variables that, no matter how hard we try to break it down, will decide The Big Game.

No matter what we do or say or think, it's all going to be in the hands of a bunch of kids that were in high school a few years ago come 3:36 p.m. on Saturday. We will be there with them in mind, body, and unified spirit. Pull. It. Out. Dawgs!

I wish they'd put me in charge of the PA in the locker room just before kickoff on Saturday. As tempted as I'd be to blast "Seven Nation Army," I'd take a different tack, one of calm inspiration. Instead of trying to charge the young gladiators' bodies, I'd try and focus their minds. Pink Floyd recorded their excellent 1971 album Meddle when they could find spare moments in a frenetic concert schedule. You'd never know it from the placid, stirring sincerity of my favorite track from the album and your Song of the Week for September 27, 2013, "Fearless." The song, built on an unforgettable open G acoustic riff (atypically played by bassist Roger Waters in the studio), challenges then inspires before reaching a peaceful lyrical resolution. It winds into an unpredictable ending (hinted at early in the song) in the form of the Liverpool F.C. Kop choir singing the English football chant, "You'll Never Walk Alone." We will be playing American football on Saturday, but the message resonates on any continent.

"You say the hill's too steep to climb. Climb it!"

SOTW - September 12, 2013 - "Easy" (John McCauley)

Equal parts Kurt Cobain (self-destruction) and Neil Young (quirky folk-rock earthiness) with a dash of Axl Rose (ssweat-drenched kisses from the front row), Deer Tick frontman John McCauley is an enigmatic indie rock hurricane. His catalogue is wide and deep despite his youth, ranging from Bakersfield alt country (2007's War Elephant),  to power pop (2010 side project Middle Brother), to crass garage grunge (2012's not-so-well received Divine Providence). He's turned himself into Jim James for the unwashed, super late-night crowd (complete with a recent Q&A in none other than Esquire magazine). Can he get comfortable with stardom?

Like Young, McCauley is as comfortable (and good) solo acoustic as he is with the amps blowing apart. When you get through the showmanship and occasional boorishness, there's a delicate earnestness about him. He can weave dreams (my personal favorite, "Dirty Dishes" off of Elephant; don't get me started) and say grace ("Choir of Angels" off of 2010's Black Dirt Sessions). The only time I've seen him live, your Song of the Week for September 13, 2013, which lies on the other end of the McCauley spectrum, was the set highlight. A tense introspective rocker off of 2009's Born on Flag Day that evokes a man with a bad hangover, "Easy" is anything but. Your music collection could probably use a little more Deer Tick. 

    

Album Review - T. Hardy Morris, Audition Tapes

T. Hardy Morris
Audition Tapes

Dangerbird Records

Reminiscence is a more common musical theme than coming of age. Everybody has a past. All to often in music, the artist doesn't have a future. Both themes are effectively spun on Audition Tapes, the debut solo effort from Athens, GA stalwart and Dead Confederate frontman T. Hardy Morris. 

While young at 33, Morris is a veteran of the music scene, having played live music in Confederate and its predecessors (Redbelly) dating back to his teenage years. His experience shows here in perspective and patience. Confederate fans will be surprised by the tempered ambiance of Morris outside of his normal context. The stainless industrialism of Confederate is nowhere to be found, and Morris decompresses wearing a (figurative) thrift store Cowboy hat. The result is stripped-down, pedal steel infused indie folk that evokes Unplugged-era Kirk Cobain blended with Harvest Moon Neil Young. The musical theme is subtle, with open-space instrumentation devoid of flash but supportive of the contemplative mood.  

Statements of nascent post-road adulthood (excellent opening track "Lucky") are patiently presented alongside cautionary tales of excess ("Hardstuff," with its stirring "leave yourself alone" refrain; album closer "Own Worst Enemy"). On another page, the listener gets a playful look backwards with the portrait-of-youth title track (Wes Anderson, take note). Mature advice is dispensed in the form of "Disaster Proof." (The comforts of marriage and home inevitably give a man perspective.) The material here is serious in theme, but none of it feels heavy. It's a neat trick. If this is Morris's audition tape, he makes the cast.    

SOTW - July 3, 2013 - " ... we can not hallow this ground."

We Americans celebrate our Liberty tomorrow. Its blessings are infinite, but the price is great. 150 years ago this evening, our Nation experienced the latter on an unimaginable scale. Lee sent his Grays up a 40 foot tall ridge just south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on a hot July afternoon. Meade's Blues held fast. The determination of a brave few to preserve a More Perfect Union prevailed. The lives of 51,000 American sons and husbands were lost or forever altered on those immortal fields. We are all better for it, for the Union persevered. The Battle of Gettysburg, and the war of which it was a part, are the most incomprehensible chapters of our history. But they must not be forgotten, lest the cost paid by those brave souls on 3 July 1863 be in vain. About the battle, Abraham Lincoln later uttered some of the greatest words any mortal ever has. They bear repeating on the eve of our Independence Day (and forevermore): 

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 

If you know little of The Civil War, then Ken Burns's documentary of the same name is a wonderful place to start. Every American should watch it at least once. The theme music of Burns's masterwork is your Song of the Week for July 3, 1863. Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans! Let's never forget how lucky we are to live and breathe on this soil. 

Lakewood

Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta, Georgia is the Wrigley Field of music in the South. Outdated, painted-over, dilapidated, and unfortunately located, it's home field charm shines through its rust. Ask a Southern music lover where "the Lawn" is. You'll get a knowing smile and an immediate "Lakewood. [Insert some variant of 'I've had some killer times at that place!']." It's hard to explain how or why it has survived. It's difficult to get to; getting home is even worse. The neighborhood can be scary. The lots are unsavory barely-maintained urban asphalt and gravel-dirt with no facilities and indicia of squatting everywhere. Tailgating friends can be a 30 minute urban adventure away with poor coordination. And what's with that old stadium? But on just the right midsummer night, when the obligatory afternoon micro storm had passed and the heat started to seep out of the concrete as the sun set, a stirring Vibe took over.

For me, there's significant personal history there. It was the site of my very first concert (a Pantera/Sepultura/Prong triple bill in '94; the '80's era Poison and Bon Jovi shows at Albany Civic Center were a non-starter in the Johnson household) and some of the best I've ever seen (where to start: Phil Lesh Quintet 8/5/01, Phish 6/23/00, Radiohead 5/8/08). When Phish hit town back in the early '00's, typically around July 4, you could smell the electricity around the place. Tickets sold out the day they went on sale (waiting in line at the Publix in Buckhead on a Saturday morning was the only chance you had) and were impossible to come by. With every type of handmade good being offered by every type of person imaginable, for half a day, it was an island unto itself; the closest analog that children of the '70's and '80's will have to a prime era 'Dead experience. The memory of weaving through the glow stick wasteland peppering the standing, laying, spinning, spun-out, and jumping bodies on the Lawn is eternal. As bad as you wanted to find Your Spot and unload a couple of the beers you carried through the melee for your journey friends, the journey was strangely pleasurable. It was like stumbling through a cloud of bliss, a momentary oasis of unadulterated joy that would only dissipate when the sun rose again.

I'm heading back to Lakewood tomorrow for the first time in years. The Bob Dylan Americana Music Festival awaits. We will see whether the nostalgia masks the grand old venue's deficiencies to more discerning (i.e., aged) eyes. The place will be different to me now, but that's quite OK. The Ghosts of those magical nights in the '00's live on in my head.

[For your listening pleasure, Early Evening presents the aforementioned 8/5/01 show from the "The Q." What. A. Night. You can see the setlist here. The opening Jam > Help on the Way > Viola Lee and the near 20 minute "Sugaree" (track 6) are sure to get your weekend off to the right start.]

SOTW - June 21, 2013 - "In a booth in the corner ..."

It's a love story as old as time. A smoke-filled dive bar, late at night. Packed and steamy hot. The din pulsates, warping the dimly-lit air. You can hear the juke box playing, the song indiscernible. Glasses and foreheads sweat. Things reach a crescendo. Romance abounds, floating, waiting to attach itself to two souls in (fleeting) communion. A man walks in. There's a lady in a booth in the corner. Eyes meet, then meet again. Seconds pass. Then again. No coincidence. People begin filtering out to find the Night's conclusion. Not these two. A pitcher of drinks. Then another...  

Daylight comes and birds chirp. No eye contact now. Only pleasureful shame. What the hell? They know the score. A love story as old as time, but a short one.

Loretta Lynn was 43 years years old when Jack White was born. Musically, several genres separate the Coal Miner's Daughter and The Pale Master. How and why they came to make music together, much less tell us a dazzling story of temporary lovers, I cannot explain. Such asymmetry in age, style, and experience can spell forced disaster; not here. Jack and Loretta are both too great for that. Plus, they really like each other. (Not how you are thinking.) This unlikeliest of musical unions - between a then 72 and a 28 year old- produced one of the great modern American albums, 2004's Van Lear Rose. If you grew up in the country, this crossover classic will carry you home, straight to Grandma's arms. It's sound evokes the wind rustling the old pecan trees out back on a hot July evening. Woven with themes of tradition ("This Old House", "High on a Mountaintop"), family ("Family Tree"), trial, and triumph (the title track), this was Americana before Americana was cool. It's essential material for any library and enrichment on a hot summer day.

The album's unforgettable track, and your Song of the Week for June 21, 2013, bucks the narrative arc of the album a bit and takes us back to our smoke-filled bar. The daydream haze of the intro segues into a gentle hook before blasting into the soaring highs of the main theme. Instead of the story of conquest and adventure that the music portrays, the listener is dropped into a little bar and a sloe gin fizz soaked story of one man, one woman, and an unforgettable night. "Portland, Oregon" is one big smile. "And a pitcher to go!"