Solo and Southern out on His Own, Jason Isbell Stakes a Post -Truckers Claim
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ROCK BY RAY WADDELL Solo And Southern Out On His Own, Jason Isbell Stakes A Post -Truckers Claim ason Isbell may have shocked Drive - and Hand Grenades," a boozy take on love By Truckers loyalists when he abruptly gone wrong that boasts a bluesy piano part, departed the Southern rock band in veers into Ray Charles territory. April, but with his debut solo release, "We had a great album from start to finish, III "Sirens of the Ditch," the singer/song- which is rare these days, so press was the writer will likely solidify his own loyal fan base. critical launching pad" for marketing the re- "Sirens," released July 10 on New West lease, New West VP of marketing and oper- Records, was produced by DBT's Patterson ations Herb Agner says. "We're using a na- Hood. It showcases a broader musicality than tionwide major- market tour to solidify local Isbell delivered in his previous, songwriting- PR coverage, drive more fans online to rich band. The album's 11 cuts blend rock with Jason's and New West's Web sites for spe- track EP of album songs available via iTunes. be the most important, as it signifies a move R &B, gospel and acoustic influences, all pow- cial offers and give Jason the chance to visit Carter says the band is aggressively target- toward the expansive, emotive sound of ered by Isbell's perceptive, Southern -themed radio and TV." In slightly more than a month, ing download sales, which SoundScan con- Coldplay. songwriting and bluesy vocals. he says, Isbell's MySpace profile has grown firms made up 20% of the total U.S. sales of Smith is happy enough to be compared to Isbell started the project in 2003 at Mus- "from zero to 124,000 plays." "The Back Room." Purchasers of the EP, re- the biggest U.K. band of recent years, although cle Shoals, Ala. -based FAME recording stu- Though a variety of musicians contribute to leased the day after the U.K. album to deter he was more excited that R.E.M.'s Peter Buck dio during rare DBT downtime, but complet- "Sirens," Isbell is touring this summer with the import purchases, will be able to buy the turned up to watch the band perform at a Seat- ing the record was a long process. "It only Muscle Shoals -based 400 Unit, which is now whole album via iTunes at a reduced rate. tle in -store during the last campaign. took two or three weeks in the studio, but it his full -time backing band. The set list includes The next single, "An End Has a Start," will "It is big guitar music," Smith says of the took me about two -and -a -half years to get "Sirens" material and Isbell -penned DBT clas- coincide with a monthlong American tour new album. "I like Coldplay -A Rush of Blood it done because we were on the road so sics like "Outfit" and "Decoration Day." in September. "That will be the first single to the Head' is a great record. But if I wanted much," Isbell says. "I still feel like those songs are fairly fresh," we work properly to modern rock radio," to [pick] a record that we're trying to emu- Even after the record was in the can, it he says. "It's not like I played them for 20 Carter says. late, we're trying to make our `Automatic for took more than a year for New West to re- years with the Truckers and got tired of But it's another potential single, "The the People' or our `The Bends.' That's what lease it, again thanks to the arduous DBT doing them." Weight of the World," that might prove to we aim to do." workload. But that said, Isbell's departure Since "Southern Rock Opera" in 2002, from DBT was not the catalyst that spurred according to Nielsen SoundScan, the the release. "What actually made it finally Truckers have topped the 70,000 sales come together," he says, "was the fact that mark with every release except their most the Truckers weren't planning on doing a recent, 2006's "Blessing and a Curse," whole awful lot of touring this year." which came close at 68,000 -a dip, The album's showpiece and leadoff sin- nonetheless, from the 88,000 their top gle is "Dress Blues," a heartbreaking take seller "Dirty South" sold in 2004. But as on the effects of a soldier's death on a for why he left a successful band with such dinary arts administrator reissue having been on RCA Matthew Passion and the Cha- small Southern town. Isbell manages to a passionate following, Isbell says, "I don't and a cheerful TV presence, Gold Seal nearly two decades conne movement from the deliver the tale without being heavy - talk about it much. I could give you the it is her accomplishments as ago, perhaps Sony BMG Mas- Partita in D minor -that un- handed politically, which heightens the stock answer I've given everybody, but it is a singer -a wonderful and terworks can now be per- derpin the novel's emotional song's emotional impact. basically a personal thing between us and thoroughly American artist suaded to go back into the climaxes. (The irony within is "I do have a political opinion on [the war], them. It's not something I could possibly -that have been memorial- vault to revisit this landmark that the Nazis held up Bach as but I didn't really have to put that out there explain in the course of anything less than ized on recordings, includ- performance. an example of the pinnacle of in the song," he says. "Like Stephen Colbert six months of sessions." ing some very fine reissues Aryan culture.) says, reality has a liberal bias. If you just tell It's clear, though, that the challenges of released in the past decade. FROM BOW TO (COMPUTER) While Drucker's grace and the story it ends up coming out the way I touring added fuel to the fire of a rather Among the must -hears: KEYBOARD: Add "novelist" fluency as a writer don't quite feel about it." strange dynamic anyway. Isbell was at the Rossini's "The Barber of to the list of violinist Eugene match his revelatory musical The song's story "pretty much told itself," time married to DBT bassist Shonna Tucker, Seville" recorded in 1975 Drucker's accomplishments. performances, his meditations Isbell says. "This is not just a small -town who remains a member of the band. "A lot of with James Levine con- One of the founding mem- on heroism, cowardice and on phenomenon, but for some reason when things happened over the course of all of us ducting and Sills playing bers of the revered Emerson the place art may (or may not) I'm paying attention to the people who have being roommates for that long, under those Rosina with masterful String Quartet and a well - hold at moments of human- died over there it just seems like there are conditions," Isbell says. "I still feel real close to comedic timing (EMI Clas- known soloist, Drucker is re- ity's worst failures are moving. more of them coming from small towns in them, I still talk to them, we still sics), Douglas Moore's ceiving warm reviews for his His descriptions of these mu- the South." get along most of the time. American classic "The Bal- first novel, "The Savior," pub- sical works are intensely po- Elsewhere, "In a Razor Town" is reminis- It's possible we may play lad of Baby Doe" from 1959 lished by Simon & Schuster etic, and they will undoubtedly cent of Tom Petty's more acoustic work, together again in the (Deutsche Grammophon) and available July 17. The shed light on these pieces for "Grown" and "Brand New Kind of Ac- future, but right now and, also on DG, the reissues story concerns a non -Jewish classical music lovers as well tress" are hooky rock songs and "Try" it's real important for from 2000 of Donizetti's German violinist who is as those not generally drawn is balls -out blues rock. "Hurricanes me to do this." "Three Queen" operas - forced to take part in a sadis- to such music. While Isbell's songs, vo- "Anna Bolena," "Maria tic psychological experiment Drucker writes with pro- cals and guitar playing were Stuarda" and "Roberto during World War II, playing found sensitivity, and his per- often featured in DBT, he rarely Devereux." for a small group of dying sonal connections to this took the frontman role. Now, "If Unfortunately, the produc- Jewish inmates at a concen- material run deep: His own people are going to be enter- tion that finally made Sills a tration camp. father was the model for one tained, they're going to be superstar after years of toil- While references to Bartók, of the book's characters, a looking at me for it," he ing in opera's minor leagues Paganini, Beethoven, Ysaye, Jewish violinist whom the says. "I don't mind that. I -Handel's "Giulio Cesare" Reger, Hindemith, Brahms Nazis tried to bar from per- don't know if I'd have been at the NYCO, with Julius and Mozart are woven into the forming at his graduation ready for it five or six years Rudel conducting narrative, it's Bach, -is out of though - concert from Cologne's ago, but I feel like I'm ready print.