Album Review: "Something More Than Free" - Jason Isbell

"Something More Than Free": A.  I may be guilty of morbid curiosity, but I need to know what happens to guys who get kicked out of their former bands.  If you know the answer to the question, "Name the bass player who got fired from Bon Jovi," that would certify you as a music nerd.  The answer is Alec John Such, who was canned in 1984 before Bon Jovi struck it rich as a big time band.  Instead of becoming a multi-millionaire like his ex-mates, Such owns a motorcycle shop and is out of the performing business.

Brian Jones -- not Mick Jagger or Keith Richards -- was the Englishman who formed the Rolling Stones in 1962.  As the rhythm guitarist who sometimes shared lead with Keith, he was instrumental in guiding the Stones to stardom on both sides of The Pond, including the halcyon era of the British Invasion.  But Jones was asked to leave the group in June of '69, and one month later he drowned under mysterious circumstances in a swimming pool at his country estate.

The most famous involuntary departure of all was that of the Beatles' first drummer, Pete Best.  His major sin was his introspective personality, which did not mix well with the other lads who were quite effervescent.  According to several sources, including John Lennon's biographer, Philip Norman, the other band members gutlessly had their manager, Brian Epstein, deliver the pink slip to Pete.  Best's termination occurred less than two months before the release of the Beatles first UK single, Love Me Do, in October 1962.  Best has had an on-again/ but mostly off-again career in music, never getting a sniff of the big money.

All of this brings us to Jason Isbell, whose new album, Something More Than Free, is the subject of this post.  Just as was the case with Such and Jones, drug and alcohol addiction proved to be Isbell's undoing as a key member of the southern rock band, Drive By Truckers.  His abuse of drugs made him an unsteady player and an unreliable bandmate.  His buddies in the band, including his first wife, bassist Shonna Tucker, begged him to take a break from touring in 2007 so he could address his issues.  When Isbell refused, they cut the cord.  This was quite unfortunate for both sides, partly because even though Isbell was not an original member, he had been a Trucker for six years and his song writing prowess made DBT a formidable presence in the rock genre.  He had contributed many songs to the Truckers' playbook, including the title song of their fourth album, Decoration Day.

Isbell's failures to confront his demons cost him his marriage to Tucker, and he lived in a state of limbo for almost six years.  During that time he made music with an under-the-radar regional band he formed called The 400 Unit, but to his credit his top priority was rescuing himself from an inevitably dire ending.  When he finally cleaned up his act, the writing muse returned, and 2013's Southeastern was the smash result.  Something More Than Free , released this summer, is the follow-up to Southeastern, and as Momma Cuan's friend Norma might say, "It is WONderful!"

Almost every song on the eleven tune menu has a hook that you'll have a hard time ejecting from your mental playlist.  The first two entries are prime examples.  If It Takes A Lifetime is about the singer attempting to redress his wild past by living a more responsible present.  But he finds it's a slow process  The chorus includes the lines: 

 

I thought the highway loved me but 

she beat me like a drum,

My day will come, 

If it takes a lifetime.   

 

Isbell sounds like a young John Prine, but with a better voice.  His delivery has that wisecracking air which the older Prime has mastered. 

 

24 Frames addresses the need to take responsibility for making yourself a better person.  The song is clearly influenced by the failure of his marriage to Tucker, thus bringing back thoughts of the last album I reviewed here, Neil Diamond's Melody Road (December 27, 2014; A).  When he was young, predestination was the singer's rationale for bad behavior.  Everything was out of an individual's control, he figured, because whatever happened was what God wanted to happen.  Wrong! 

 

You thought God was an architect,

Now you know. 

 

The song title refers to an amount of time equal to a single second, as that's how many frames pass by in a second when using a 35 millimeter projector.

 

Everything you've built

that's all for show

goes up in flames,

In twenty-four frames.

 

The jangly guitar might remind some sixties fans of the early Byrds.  Roger McGuinn would be proud.

 

Momma Cuan's favorite track, The Life You Choose, is another selection which makes the listener wonder if Isbell knows he "blew it" as a young man.  Like several other songs on the album, one school of thought is that he is singing to his ex, confessing that he could have handled things better.  Once again, responsibility and control of one's own life are the topics. 

 

Are you living the life you chose?

[or] Are you living the life that chose you? 

 

The bouncy beat with brushes on the snare resembles the Traveling Wilburys, in which Isbell, via time travel, would have been a perfect fit.

 

It has been said that a bridge is the hardest part of a song to write.  It needs to be different from, yet ideally relate to, the verses, while at the same time connecting to a chorus and/or a break.  I love the fluidity with which Isbell inserts his bridges.  The bridge in The Life You Chose is close to perfection.

 

Isbell is as much a poet and storyteller is he is a song writer.  The imagery he incorporates into his songs is almost tangibly visible.  Four examples.  Flagship describes an older couple sitting together at a table in the corner of an old hotel bar. 

 

She's got nothing left to learn about his heart.

They're sitting there a thousand miles apart.

 

In Speed Trap Town, the singer has hung around his home town, waiting for his terminally ill father to pass.  The old man outlives the prognosis. 

 

How long can they keep you in the ICU?

Veins in the skin like a faded tattoo.

 

Hudson Commodore, a song sung and produced in the fashion of Lyle Lovett, tells of a single mother with two kids who worked hard all her life.  She had plenty of proposals from wealthy suitors who would have carried her off to a better life.  But she had simple tastes and wanted to lay low, with one exception. 

 

She just wanted to ride in a Delahaye 135.

She just wanted to ride in a Hudson Commodore. 

 

Here is Isbell's description, in Palmetto Rose, of the interior of a taxi in Charleston, South Carolina:

 

Palmetto rose in the A/C vent,

Cross-stich pillow where the headrest went. 

 

The final track might surprise people who only know of Isbell through the Drive By Truckers.  To A Band That I Loved is not about his ill-fated stint with the Truckers, but is a combination tribute and thank you to Centro-Matic.  Before Isbell became an accomplished writer, that North Texas band, with which Isbell periodically played guitar, wrote lyrics expressing the thoughts that Isbell at the time was unable to pen.  Isbell's new song laments C-M's decision to call it quits at the end of 2014.

 

Isbell's star is rising once again.  He is sober, remarried -- coincidentally to another musician -- and now has two acclaimed albums to his credit in these early stages of his reformed and reshaped life.  I am sorry I missed him at this summer's Basilica Block Party, but if he returns to the Twin Towns I will be there.