JASON ISBELL
Saturday, July 27, 2013
“Jason Isbell is a link in the chain between the narrative storytelling of Nashville and the swampy R&B and country of Muscle Shoals, the North Alabama musical motherland that may be having a revival (or may have just never gone away). A guitar prodigy from an early age, Isbell joined Drive By-Truckers in 2001 and penned classics like ‘Decoration Day’ and ‘Outfit,’ anthems of the New South that tackle issues of family and duty, the latter cautioning, ‘Don’t sing with a fake British accent / Don’t act like your family’s a joke.’
Isbell’s song ‘Alabama Pines’ from 2011’s Here We Rest astonishes with razor sharp lines like, ‘Hardly even know my name anymore / When no one calls it out, it kind of vanishes away.’ A drifter’s tale about nothing at all yet somehow everything, it may be the most quintessential Southern song in nearly a decade. Isbell is an important bearer of an authentic strain of American music, a mix of alt-country swagger and Americana-worthy songwriting chops that will find a home nowhere better than Newport Folk Festival. Like the festival’s pantheon of great songwriters from Dylan to Johnny Cash, there’s no doubt Isbell’s the real deal. Just don’t expect him to sing with a British accent.”
– Davis Inman
contributing editor for American Songwriter and also writes for The A.V. Club, The Nashville Scene, and Aquarium Drunkard
@davisinman
www.jasonisbell.com/
Artists and schedule are subject to change.
