In a very exciting event, Dr. Farley and I converged on Florence, Alabama, in the shadow of the Wilson Dam at Muscle Shoals, to see Jason Isbell play a full set with Drive By Truckers for the first time in 20 years. This was part of ShoalsFest, Isbell’s festival he holds most years in Florence. I had been to this once before, back in 2021, when DBT was also on the agenda. He’s streamlined it back a bit since then and there were three acts.

S.G. Goodman opened. It was the third time I’ve seen her and though her set doesn’t change much, she’s such a great storyteller that the work does not get old. She’s also added a cover of Lucinda Williams’ “I Lost It” to the set recently, which never hurts anything. She’s been rethinking the arrangements of some of her songs as well and changing them up a bit. Her set was a bit marred by someone who was probably really drunk and passed out and it took a good 20 minutes to get that person out of there. Kinda early for that! Security itself was caught a bit off guard, which was part of the reason it was slow.

Then DBT came out. This was a special night. For the first time ever, they were playing the entirety of their 2003 album Decoration Day, which is also the album when Isbell first joined the band and contributed two of his greatest songs, “Outfit” and “Decoration Day.” Since “Outfit” is merely one of the best songs anyone has ever written, it was a high bar for him to hit in the future, but he has hit it or come close with 7 or 8 other songs in his now over two decade career. Of course the band was having an absolute blast playing these songs. It was my 36th DBT show and because they were playing the whole album, there were several songs, outside of the Isbell tracks, that I had never seen played, such as “Your Daddy Hates Me” and “Careless” and “Loaded Gun in the Closet,” which was fun to see live. The one problem with that album is that the second half drags a bit and it’s two songs too long and they are definitely Hood songs, as he dominates that album. In fact, I’d put it as their 4th best album, behind American Band, Brighter than Creation’s Dark, and The Dirty South, which I would have liked to see played even more.

But for almost any other band, Decoration Day would be by far the best album of their career, with great songs like “Sink Hole” and “Hell No I Ain’t Happy” and “Marry Me,” among the best, plus the Isbell tracks. In addition, they brought former Centro-Matic fiddler Scott Danborn joined them on many tracks. He played the fiddle on the recording of “Heathens,” one of the songs on the album and so he sat it on about 5 tracks. Also, since we were at the site for the inspiration of the TVA after all, Cooley played “Uncle Frank” and Isbell his rarely played track “TVA,” providing two very different views of the agency’s impact on the people of Alabama. Then Hood closed with “A World of Hurt,” which is a great song to close with and a track about getting through the roughest times, which these most certainly are.

One thing you realize seeing this is what an excellent guitarist Isbell is. We already this–it was why he was invited into the band after all–but in his solo shows, he often plays the role of the songwriter much more and strums a lot of acoustic while handing off the flashier stuff to his own guitarist, Sadler Vaden. But Isbell can really play. Both times I saw Centro-Matic play, for example, Isbell sat in on guitar the entire set (his song “To a Band I Loved” is dedicated to them and he has added its frontman Will Johnson to his own band as a second drummer and rhythm guitarist). He really adds a lot to the already super guitar based sound of DBT. He’s also an excellent backing singer, which Cooley rarely provides Hood, for whatever reason. So yeah, it was pretty great! Got a lot of attention from the media too, which is always pretty cool.

Then came Isbell’s set to close the night, which was not anti-climatic, even if it wasn’t that different than his usual sets. I’ve said this before (as this is my 14th Isbell show after all), but his band is so, so good now. Take a song like “Super 8,” the sole rocker off his mostly very sober Southeastern album. The problem with the 400 Unit at that time is that they kind of sucked as a band. And while a couple of guys remain from that era, Isbell seems to have realized this and hired the best musicians he can. First that was Vaden to add much better guitar. Then he replaced the not so great Jimbo Hart on bass with the fantastic jazz-trained Anna Butterss, who is also part of SML, the now hot groove jazz band. Then he added Johnson to provide even more of a sonic backing, making him one of the exceptionally few frontmen to have two drummers behind him. The set list was nice too–unlike DBT, there are chestnuts he’s always going to play and I actively dislike his big hit “Cover Me Up,” but he did play his DBT song “Danko/Manuel,” which I love and he brought old songs like “Dress Blues” and “Streetlights” and then a good mix of the songs off his albums starting with Southeastern and going to the present, including greats such as “Speed Trap Town” and “King of Oklahoma.”

So yeah, I’d say it was a good time. The festival needs better food options, but otherwise is a pretty first rate experience. Plus I have a lot of Alabama graves to present you in the near future.

News and Notes:

Elvis Costello evidently hates Pink Floyd.

I struggle with the idea that there’s anything more to say about The Beatles ever, but here’s an NPR essay on Rubber Soul for those of you who just can’t get enough.

The West needs to do a much better of understanding African pop music and not flattening it into a single thing. Makes sense, since the world treats the continent like a giant country, which is racist among other problems.

U2 is back to annoy us all.

I am pretty excited for the new Jess Williamson album.

Agree that Terminal 5 in New York is a pretty bad venue.

It’s Monk’s birthday and Chinen thinks about his legacy with Miles Okazaki and Frank Kimbrough.

Album Reviews:

The Gaslight Anthem, History Books

Like everything with The Gaslight Anthem, this is a perfectly fine straight ahead rock and roll album that doesn’t move much of a needle within me, but which will tick off every mainstream rock box. Bruce even guests on a song. This band too often bores me in a Coldplay like way when they get “serious.” But it’s alright.

B

Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet, Sure Grand Out

Your unfortunately typical jazz album release strategy, where 3 of 9 tracks are available to hear. Well, luckily I already know that this all female quintet of Melford (piano), Mary Halvorson (guitar), Ingrid Laubrock (sax), Tomeka Reid (cello), and Lesley Mok (drums) is pretty amazing. I could stop complaining about this, but I’m not going to. That said, if the third of this album I was able to hear is like the rest, or their last album, well, it’s definitely one of the best jazz releases you will hear this year. I might also note that in jazz, it’s still relatively new for this one very male-dominated genre (minus some vocalists) to have all-women bands, which is part of the reason why this band and Artemis get a lot of attention, the other reason being that both bands are very good, if quite different from the other. Each of these musicians is among the best living in their instruments, two are official MacArthur Geniuses, and Melford is one of the most underrated musicians in the world.

A

Lindsey Buckingham, Lindsey Buckingham

Turns out Buckingham released a solo album in 2021. I thought, I’d dunno, maybe it’s alright, I wonder…..The answer is, well, it’s certainly not good but if you were a Fleetwood Mac completist, you might listen to this repeatedly. It doesn’t completely lack in value. The first track is kinda a banger. It’s probably the one above-average cut here. The second and third cuts were the singles and they are OK. He’s mostly writing the same kind of breakup songs he’s always written. Interestingly, he plays all the instruments on the album, for better or worse. Mostly for kind of whatever, outside the guitar of course.

C+

Bonnie Prince Billy, Ghosts of American Psychonauts

Bonnie Prince Billy has a long history of rethinking his songs and recording them, both studio and live. It’s to a bit of mixed bag, which you can say about his whole career really. His best albums are among the best of the century but there are also some really terrible albums out there and some that are kind of boring and some that rock pretty hard and some that are tremendously beautiful and some that get lost in the ether. So when I heard about another live album where the reconsidered his previous songs, I figured it could be anything really. Luckily, it’s on the better side of his releases. He’s got a pretty good sized band here, including the gonzo saxophonist Patrick Shiroshi. In fact, there are three people playing either sax or clarinet in this band, so he’s really rethinking these songs. It’s a combo of newer and older songs, including “Shorty’s Ark” in the former (a celebration of animals off the Superwolves album with Matt Sweeney) and old standards such as “Strange Form of Life” and “I See a Darkness.” It still remains a rock album through all the woodwinds and it maintains enough of the original integrity of the songs to keep the proceedings moving. Worthy and also pretty short, coming it at just over 30 minutes.

A-

Ex-Void, In Love Again

A fun pop album from the collective of Welsh rockers that have also created Joanna Gruesome and The Tubs (my favorite). This isn’t crazy substantial, but it’s a fun fuzzy guitar rock album with plenty of pop influences. Here, Owen Williams’ Richard Thompson-esque voice is more in the background, with Lan McArdle’s great vocals in the front. This is more chill than Joanna Gruesome was, but also quite tuneful. Even a wee touch of country in there.

A-

Laura Veirs, Temple Songs

Another lovely entry in Veirs’ career; I am excited to finally see her perform tomorrow night. Veirs is very open about the changes in her life, divorce, remarriage, politics in these shitty times. For her, a simple folk song isn’t just a song but a way for us to take a break from all the terribleness. And as she starts the album with:

The arc still bends towards justice, right?
I’m not so sure in the middle of the night
The arc still bends towards justice, right?
So why am I still holding this fucking sign?

No. No it does not. Nice to think that though. And to ask why she’s still holding that fucking sign is not to say she shouldn’t, but it is to say:

I’ve been searching for a remedy
Guess I’ll keep searching
But three sunbeams I found
Warm the cold ground
Found a poet lying in a bed of moss
She’s someone I used to know once
There and gone like a summit view
There’s much I’d like to know about you

I’ve been searching for a remedy
Guess I’ll keep searching
But three sunbeams I found
Warm the cold ground
Warm the cold house
Warm the cold clouds

Probably right.

A-

As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.