Jamey Johnson - That Lonesome Song
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CD Details
Artist: Jamey JohnsonEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2008-08-05
Music Label: Mercury Nashville
Soundtracks:
- Released
- High Cost Of Living
- Sending An Angel To Hell
- Place Out On The Ocean
- Mowin' Down The Roses
- The Door Is Always Open
- Mary Go Round
- In Color
- When The Last Cowboy's Gone
- That Lonesome Song
- Dreaming My Dreams With You
- Women
- Stars In Alabama
- Between Jennings And Jones
Music reviews of That Lonesome Song
Music Review: Gritty country self-portrait
Rating: 5 Stars
Johnson's second album took a lot of people by surprise, even those who'd enjoyed his 2006 debut, The Dollar. As engaging as was his first album, particularly for his moving baritone voice, what emerged two years later was a much darker, much deeper songwriter. Despite writing chart-topping hits (including George Strait's "Give It Away" and Trace Adkins' "Ladies Love Country Boys"), Johnson lost both his record deal and his wife, and hard living caught up to him. Retreating to his writer's pen, Johnson poured his pain into this set of songs, initially released independently, and subsequently picked up by Mercury. It's doubtful that an album this hard-core country could have been recorded under the watchful eye of a major label, particularly as a follow-up to a commercially stiff debut. Luckily for listeners, Johnson followed his own road and let the label play catch-up.
The reckoning at the album's core is front and center in the opening song's catch line, "the high cost of living ain't nothing like the cost of living high." Johnson imagines himself in prison, rummaging through the emotional wreckage left in the wake of a wasted, out-of-control life. He lingers over the painful moments, as if they're a cilice worn in repentance, as if to hasten redemption. The music lingers as well, with slow waltzes, instrumental passages verging on country jams, and dripping steel guitar codas that wind down as last gasps of contrition. The recovery sought in this suite (the songs often segue without gaps) is to be found in a crooked line of ups and downs that bounce between the realities of a gritty present and the dreams of a hopeful future. You can hear Johnson writing his way out of the hole he'd dug, working through admission, decision, inventory, amends, awakening and sharing.
By opening and closing each song informally, as if the band is warming up to a groove and searching for definitive endings, Johnson gives the album a compelling, off-the-cuff storytelling device. There have been few country albums - not songs, but albums - in recent years that have this one's thematic focus. Rodney Crowell's recent string of autobiographical albums comes to mind, but few others compare. If Waylon Jennings had ever stopped to doubt his most painful life choices, he might have written an album like this. Allen Reynolds "Dreaming My Dreams," made famous by Jennings, is sung here in a dissipated voice that recasts the song's idle wondering into a quiet prayer for salvation. Johnson was clearly touched by something larger when he wrote this album, finding a route to recovery and having the external awareness to write about it. It's not pretty, but it certainly is breathtaking. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]
Description of That Lonesome Song
He could be basking in his songwriting accolades, but Jamey Johnson remains a restlessly creative maverick.Jamey is the co-writer of the CMA and ACM 2007 Song of the Year "Give It Away," recorded by George Strait. Trace Adkins, George Jones and Joe Nichols have also recorded his songs. But instead of sitting at home counting his royalty checks, Jamey Johnson recorded more than 40 songs during the past year.
Not content with providing hits for others, the singer-songwriter has a powerful drive to sing, record and perform.
"Writing is not enough for me," says this intense artist. "I did not come here to just be a writer. I live to play....I'm not here to take a stab at it. I am going to DO it."
Following a deep period of isolation and introspection, Jamey Johnson entered the recording studio in April 2007. Within months, Jamey emerged with That Lonesome Song, a collection of extraordinary compositions that is equally noteworthy for its lyrical craftsmanship and its strikingly original sound.
The first single from the album is "In Color" and is available in the Amazon MP3 store.
The final cut on That Lonesome Song?kind of a concept album meets musical manifesto?is titled "Between Jennings and Jones," which is where Jamey Johnson finds himself shelved in the CD racks, and also how he describes his sound. Actually, there's way more Jennings than Jones, with two cuts covered from Waylon's classic Dreaming My Dreams (the title track and "The Door Is Always Open"), another paying tribute to him by name ("The Last Cowboy") and several others borrowing liberally from his sound. Yet in terms of both concept and sound, the bare-bones intimacy of this bittersweet divorce album remind more of Willie Nelson's Phases and Stages (at least side one, the man's side), with the opening "High Cost of Living" ("ain?t nothing like the cost of living high") setting the "Bloody Mary Morning" tone, extended by the sad country waltz of "Angel" and continuing through the down-and-out epiphany of the title track. Only the comparatively lightweight novelty of "Women" indicates that this is the same guy who wrote "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" for Trace Adkins. --Don McLeese
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