Tag Archives: Jason-Isbell

New York Concert Calender

Posted on by — 4 Comments ↓

Some upcoming New York shows foe all you city Hillbillys and Betties.

Bowery Ballroom

Fri 09/14/07 Pieta Brown
Fri 09/14/07 Teddy Thompson

Sat 09/29/07 Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers
Sat 09/29/07 The Alternate Routes

Wed 10/10/07 Jason Isbell
Wed 10/10/07 The Whigs

Tue 10/23/07 Shooter Jennings

Fri 10/26/07 Drive-By Truckers
Fri 10/26/07 Ryan Bingham

The Mercury Lounge

Sat 11/10/07 David Kilgour
Sat 11/10/07 Euros Childs
Sat 11/10/07 Laura Cantrell

Town Hall

Wed 09/26/07 Allison Moorer
Wed 09/26/07 Steve Earle

Tue 10/02/07 Fionn Regan
Tue 10/02/07 Lucinda Williams
Wed 10/03/07 Fionn Regan
Wed 10/03/07 Lucinda Williams
Thu 10/04/07 Fionn Regan
Thu 10/04/07 Lucinda Williams

Sat 10/27/07 Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
Sat 10/27/07 Jack Cooke
Sat 10/27/07 Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys

Billboard Story on Jason Isbell

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Billboard.com has a feature on ex-Trucker Jason Isbell about leaving the Drive By Truckers and working on his solo release, Sirens of the Ditch.

Isbell started writing for a solo album around four years ago. Although he didn’t initially set out with a side project in mind, he says a batch of songs came together that just didn’t feel like Drive-By Truckers material. “I was writing most of these songs on piano, which I hadn’t done for Truckers songs, and the arrangements I was hearing in my head called for different instrumentation than we had in the band.”

Drive By Trucker News

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Because I’m a DBT fanboy I’ll just post Patterson Hoods recent release from planet Trucker:

HEY Y’ALL:
Just wanted to touch base.
First off, i would like to thank everyone who came out last week and supported our band.
It was a great tour for us with a minimum of bumps and some amazing highlights.
Thanks to everyone who extended hospitality and made us feel so welcome in their towns.

Coming up we are playing Chattanooga this weekend and in a couple of weeks are playing 3 nights opening for the Allman Brothers.
I have some solo dates in late august and a trip out to the west coast and to Texas in September.

Next week we will be in the studio completing our next studio album.
We’re already about 2/3 done and it has gone exceptionally great, as we’ve cut a ton of new songs and the bar is really high on this one.
Many folks have already heard some of the new songs (although we’ve kept a few under wraps too) and we’ve been really happy with the response we’ve been getting out there. I think Cooley has really outdone himself this time.

In September (25) Anti Records is releasing a new album by Bettye LaVette. She is a soul legend who scored her first hit in 1962.
In 1972 she recorded an album at my Dad’s old studio that featured The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section.
The album was supposed to come out on Atlantic Records and everyone seemed to think that it was going to be her long-awaited breakthrough.
Instead the album was shelved for over 30 years, stalling her career and causing her much personal and professional anguish.
When the album was finally released a few years ago, it was received as a lost soul classic and led to her current great fortunes and record deal with Anti (who also have released great albums by Tom Waits, Merle Haggard, Nick Cave, Mavis Staples and Porter Wagoner).

Bettye LaVette’s new album is called “The Scene of the Crime” and it was co-produced by David Barbe, myself and Bettye.
For this record we took her back to Muscle Shoals (hence the title) where she was backed up by members of Drive-By Truckers along with my dad ( David Hood) and legendary keyboardist Spooner Oldham.
Work on this album led directly to Spooner’s current involvement with DBT.
We recorded it at the legendary FAME Studios there (where we had recorded much of The Dirty South).
I am extremely proud of this album and can’t wait for it to come out.

While we’re on the subject of album releases, I’d like to remind everyone who hasn’t already grabbed it, Jason Isbell’s long awaited solo album is out now and getting rave reviews from all over. I am listed as a co-producer and most of the band plays on it in various forms.

The album is called “Sirens of the Ditch” and is out now on New West Records.
He’s playing about a thousand dates so go check out his great band and show.

In October we will play the third and final leg of our “The Dirt Underneath Tour” which puts us in a mostly acoustic and somewhat stripped down mode for an evening of stories and songs.
Tour dates are up now and the tour will take us to some of our favorite towns and maybe a couple of new ones also.
After this tour it will probably be a really long time before we do this again, so I highly recommend you checking it out if you haven’t already.
It’s been a really special thing for us and has had an incalculable influence on our next album which will be coming out on New West Records in the very first part of 2008.

Guess that does it for now. Thanks again for everyone’s continued support and love.

See you at The Swamp Show.
Patterson Hood
Drive-By Truckers

———————————————————

Note from Jenn:
Hey guys, a couple of things:
First off, please go buy some art from the Sabina Art Auction! There are lots of DBT-related pieces of art there (even some pottery done by my mama!), plus a photo by Michael Stipe, a print by Clive Barker, and much more – and all proceeds go to an excellent cause.

Back to DBT –
I put up new DBT dates for October! All of these will be The Dirt Underneath shows except for the Texas date, which will be ROCK. Also posted a bunch of new Patterson Hood solo dates!

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS DATES
ALL OF THE FOLLOWING SHOWS ARE ROCK SHOWS unless otherwise noted:
Sat July 28 – Chattanooga, TN – K Fest @ Ross Landing
Fri Aug 10 – Charlotte, NC – Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre w/ The Allman Brothers Band
Sat Aug 11 – Raleigh, NC – Alltel Pavilion w/ The Allman Brothers Band
Sun Aug 12 – Virginia Beach, VA – Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre w/ The Allman Brothers Band

The following dates are part of THE DIRT UNDERNEATH unless otherwise noted:
Oct 12 – Birmingham, AL – WorkPlay Theatre
Oct 13 – New Orleans – Tipitina’s
Oct 14 – College Station, TX – Big State Festival at the Texas World Speedway (this will be a ROCK SHOW)
Oct 16 – Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom
Oct 17 – Lawrence, KS – Granada Theatre
Oct 18 – Iowa City, IA – Englert Theatre
Oct 19 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
Oct 20 – Madison, WI – Barrymore Theatre
Oct 22 – Chicago, IL – Park West
Oct 24 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom & Tavern
Oct 25 – State College, PA – The State Theatre
Oct 26 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
Oct 27 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
Oct 28 – Baltimore, MD – Ram’s Head Live
Patterson Hood Solo Dates:
Fri Aug 24 – Birmingham AL – Birmingham Museum of Art – Art On The Rocks
Sat Aug 25 – Athens GA – Melting Point with Bo Bedingfield
Thu Sep 6 – Seattle WA – Tractor Tavern
Fri Sep 7 – Bellingham WA – NightLight Lounge
Sat Sep 8 – Portland OR – Dante’s (Part of Big Fest)
Tue Sep 11 – San Francisco, CA – Swedish American Hall
Wed Sep 12 – Los Angeles, CA – The Hotel Cafe
Sun Sep 16 – Austin TX – Austin City Limits Festival

Cool! See you at the shows!

Drive By Truckers – Daddy’s Cup (Live at Red Rocks)

Drive By Truckers, Jason Isbell, Juston Townes Earle – New York City – 7/19

Posted on by — 3 Comments ↓

This last Thursday the planets lined up just right above the New York skyline and the night was graced by not one, but three excellent performances for a yearning for some fine alt.country faire.

The mighty Drive By Truckers dropped into the city to perform a free show at Clinton Castle national monument at Battery Park to play a free show for the River to River festival. The rainstorms that had come down all week held off but provided a cool, cloudy evening for the show.    

I arrived at 8:00 to the capacity show that was already in progress and in the middle of the song of sexual discord “Panties In Your Purse”. The crowd was a mix of hipster, Wall Street workers that had strolled over from work a few blocks away and folks that look like they had taken their motorcycles or pick-ups from the nether regions of the East to catch the show.

With the “extremely amicable” departure of singer /songwriter/guitarist Jason Isbell I had some trepidation that the remaining band would be lacking in some significant way. I should have known better than to question the resiliency of mighty Truckers. With Athens, Georgia’s John Neff added in as guitarist and pedal steel and did a fine job brandishing his yellow metal flake Telecaster and the legendary Muscle Shoals keyboardist Spooner Oldham was joining the Truckers on some of the dates and added a layer of funk and rhythm I had yet heard at a DBT show.

The classis were mixed with the new cuts from the latest “A Blessing and a Curse” – “Heathens”, “Sounds Better In The Song”, “Sink Hole”, “Puttin’ People On The Moon”, “Bulldozers and Dirt”, “The Night G.G. Allin Came To Town”, “Where The Devil Don’t Stay”, “The Living Bubba”, “Sands Of Iwo Jima”, “Zip City”. There was a nod to New York City with the frequent set standard by the musician, author and poet Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died.” They night finished off with the night with a rousing rendition of Bruce Springteen’s harrowing song of alienation and violence State Trooper.

After the show I headed uptown to the Mercury lounge to catch Ex-Trucker Jason Isbell, but first opening the show was a man whose moniker sets a dizzyingly high level of expectations, Justin Townes Earle.


Being Steve Earle’s first born means growing up under difficult conditions (read the book Hard Core Troubadour for more details on this) and having some big boots to fill. And Justin’s middle name is, of course, in honor of Steve Earle’s musical and chemical, mentor Townes Van Zandt. Even bigger boots.

And judging from this evening’s show Justin is well on his way to being his own man. With only an acoustic guitar and a backing ukulele (didn’t catch the musician’s name) Donning a silver specked western shirt Justin covered quite a bit of his folk-ragtime tinged EP Yuma (which he himself went out front and sold at the door for $10.) The Ghost of Virginia. You Can’t Leave Yuma, Let the Waters Rise, A Desolate Angels Blues – as well as a Buck Owens cover that I did not recognize – All in all a splendid performance from a man with an impeccable Americana pedigree, but doesn’t just ride his namesakes shirt tales.  

 

During the show Jason Isbell was mulling about in Mercury Lounge’s sold out small space. Now it was his turn to be the man in the front and not off to the right side of Patterson Hood.

Isbell and his Muscle Shoals area band the 400 Unit: Jimbo Hart (bass), Ryan Tillery (drums) and Browan Lollar (guitar) got right down to it with the searing blues-rock “Try” from the newly released Sirens of the Ditch, most of which was covered in this show.

Isbell then launched into a tribute to his former band mates by playing a song he cut with the Drive By Truckers the wrenching “God Damn Lonely Love” – he later made a kin-hearted reference to the truckers earlier show by saying – “I hope you got to catch those guys tonight. I was stuck here getting ready for this.”

Then came “The Assassin” and the excellent “Hurricanes and Hand Grenades” and the coming of age “Grown.”
As with his former band playing the distinctly New York song  “People Who Died” Isbell’s band – specifically guitarist Browan Lollar sang the Talking Heads “Psycho Killer.”

The band then played the band then played the weakly poppy “New Kind of Actress”, which seeing it live didn’t make me like it any more then I did before. Then another nod to the DBT days with “Decoration Day.” The show ended with a blasting version of Thin Lizzy’s  “Jailbreak” which left me exhilarated as well as drained from the long, delirious, night.

Jason Isbell – Sirens of the Ditch (New West) – Review

Posted on by — 3 Comments ↓

The Drive By Truckers built their reputation on the fine Southern tradition storytelling. In the Truckers tales the noble and notorious inhabit the homes, streets and woods of the deep South America living life and dealing with hardships and, many times, just getting by, or if situations arise just getting even. Using what country artists call “three chords and the truth” the DBT distilled it all down with a potent tri-axe attack mixer by way of Rossington/Collins to create great genre-bending music that challenged all “Southern-rock” assumptions.

Part of the fun of telling tales is swapping, and many times trying to top, your friends in the process.  Greenville, Alabama guitarist and songwriter, Jason Isbell’s five year stretch with the Truckers gave the other principles Patterson Hood (Vocals and Guitar) and Mike Cooley (Vocals and Guitar) a run for their imaginative money.

Arriving just after the Truckers critically acclaimed Southern Rock Opera, Isbell’s freshman effort with the band resulted in one of their most focused efforts, The brilliant “Decoration Day”, in which Isbell penned and sang the title track as well as the askew but honest ode to Southern family values “Outfit.”

After Isbells abrupt but amicable split with the Truckers earlier this year (which may, or may not have had something to do with his divorce from Trucker bassist Shonna Tucker, Jason has now decided to step up and face the music as a solo artist. Isbell’s work seemed exude a sense of authority and confidence, and his new release “Sirens of the Ditch” (New West) emanates that same power and has given Isbell the room to streatch as many of these cuts you could not imagine on a DBT album.

Kicking things off with “A New Kind of Actress” is the kind of sloppy-pop song that is reminiscent of the Replacements at their best work and highlights Isbell’s excellent slide guitar work.

“Down in the Hole” is a slinky-blues piece a la Junior Kimbrough about a man that rises to power in a small town and “Try” is a loping rock monster about woman troubles (you can’t tell her nothing she don’t know/ she’ll chop down every living thing you grow.) Nice!

“Chicago Promenade” is a cheerful piano driven song reminiscent of a Faces’ Ronnie Lane compositions and would fit nicely on a Sunday morning. 

“Dress Blues” is the most powerful cut of the album. Given the current climate of war in the Nation the theme of a hometown boy dying too young and “Sleeping in your dress blues” will make even the hardest heart weep.

“Grown” is an excellent work reflecting on adult life and love and “Hurricanes and Hand Grenades” channels George Jones by way of Ray Charles for a honky-tonk bluesy barn-burner. “In a Razor Town” a dobro laced song of small town heartache that brings to mind vintage Steve Earle.

Though I was initially bummed that the man that penned the brilliant “Danko/Manuel” was leaving the Truckers, “Sirens of the Ditch” is a fine first solo effort that does ease some of the misery and show sign of great things to come.

 

 
 

New York Upcoming Concerts – Elizebeth Cook, Drive By Truckers and Jason Isbell

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

For all you hillbillys in and around New York City (they’re out there!) there’s some fine summer music coming your way.

The lovely and talented Elizebeth Cook will bring her brand of sass and twang to the Living Room, Tuesday, June 26th – 8pm

And the mighty Drive By Truckers will be at Castle Clinton National Monument for a FREE SHOW, Thursday, July 19th – 7pm
And speaking of the Drive By Truckers, ex-trucker Jason Isbell will be playing at the Mercury Lounge on the same night,
with Steve Earle’s boy Justin Townes Earle opening the show. I can only hope that some truckers and somebody’s daddy shows up to the show.

See you at the show!

Jason Isbell New Album Details

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

From Billboard.com – Former Drive By Truckers guitarist Jason Isbell will release his solo debut, “Sirens of the Ditch,” July 10 via New West. The 11-track set features guest turns by DBT principals Patterson Hood, Shonna Tucker and Brad Morgan, plus Hood’s father David and Spooner Oldham.

“Sirens of the Ditch” was tracked at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., and Muscle Shoals session musicians will join Isbell on the road this summer, beginning July 9 in a city to be announced. Beforehand, the artist will play warm-up shows June 20 in Little Rock, Ark., June 21 in Memphis and June 22 in Chicago.
You can hear three tracks, “Dress Blues”,”Try” and “Grown” from the new CD on Isbell’s MySpace page. Damn that boys got a voice that can melt butter!

Here is the track list for “Sirens of the Ditch”:

“Brand New Kind of Actress”
“Down in a Hole”
“Try”
“Chicago Promenade”
“Dress Blues”
“Grown”
“Hurricanes and Hand Grenades”
“In a Razor Town”
“Shotgun Wedding”
“The Magician”
“The Devil Is My Running Mate”

“Dress Blues” by Jason Isbell