Jason Isbell at the Ryman
By the end of this month, if all goes as planned, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit will have headlined 20 shows at the Ryman in the past five years. Isbell, the Nashville-based President of the United States of Americana, has called the Mother Church of Country Music his “favorite place to play a show in the whole world.” He and his band have made the hallowed venue into a home base of sorts, staging nearly annual residencies — multi-night runs at the Ryman that have stretched out steadily as the years have gone by.
After headlining one show there following the release of their commercial breakthrough Southeastern in 2013, Isbell and band did a three-night stand in 2014 and four nights in 2015. They took a break in 2016, but came back for a six-night run in 2017, and they’re scheduled to play another six nights beginning on Monday. This year’s fall extravaganza will coincide with the release of Live From the Ryman, which was recorded mostly during last year’s shows. It’s the band’s first live LP since 2012’s Live From Alabama, and it features some of Isbell’s best songs, from the heartfelt and heartbreaking trio of “Elephant,” “Cover Me Up” and “If We Were Vampires” to timely-as-hell rockers like “White Man’s World” and “Cumberland Gap.”
Live records, perhaps even more than studio albums, offer snapshots of moments in an artist’s career. Live From Alabama features a band that sounds a little bit rougher than it does today, but with brilliant songwriting already on display. The set list includes several fan favorites from Isbell’s days with the Drive-By Truckers, alongside tunes from his early albums with the 400 Unit. Live From the Ryman showcases the band today, at the peak of their powers, performing songs primarily from Isbell’s two most recent records, Something More Than Free and The Nashville Sound, and a few from Southeastern, too. It traces Isbell’s ascent to the height of whatever this genre is in the years since — as he sings on “Cover Me Up” — he sobered up and “swore off that stuff, forever this time.”
Isbell’s vocal prowess has only grown. The band, as captured on Live From the Ryman, is not an anodyne, perfect machine, but a living thing that is snarling at times and sentimental at others. It makes sense for the album to have been recorded at the Ryman, the site of what has started to feel like a series of family reunions. Rather than move the show to a bigger venue like Ascend Amphitheater a few blocks away, or to Bridgestone Arena across the street, Isbell & Co. have stayed in the spot they’ve made feel like home. The result seems more intimate and, at times, more raucous and celebratory than what you’d likely see in a bigger space.
A look back at several years of Isbell shows at the Ryman isn’t complete without an appreciation of how he’s used the opportunity to invite a diverse group of artists to the party as his openers. In doing so, he’s introduced his fan base — as loyal and open-minded a bunch as any artist could hope for — to a wide range of bands and singer-songwriters, some whom his fans might not have stumbled upon otherwise. Isbell’s earlier Ryman openers included Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton prior to their breakout successes. His recent almost weeklong residencies exhibit an intentional decision to use his platform to elevate deserving artists who are conspicuously overlooked.
Last year, all six nights of Isbell’s stay at the Ryman were opened by various women — white and black, queer and straight, masters of an assortment of styles. First came the harmony-laden songs of The Secret Sisters (who, like Isbell, hail from Green Hill, Ala.); then Julien Baker’s confessional anthems; Bettye Lavette’s deep blues; the literate tunes of Isbell’s wife Amanda Shires; Lydia Loveless’ country- and New Wave-influenced rock; and The McCrary Sisters’ superb gospel.
This year, Isbell announced an all-Nashville group of openers who are diverse in terms of gender, race and musical style. Monday’s show kicks off with singer-songwriter and champion guitarist Molly Tuttle (recognized for her playing by both the IBMA and the Americana Music Association), followed by local rock stalwarts JEFF the Brotherhood on Tuesday, and mighty rockers Bully on Wednesday. Amanda Shires and her band open on Friday, then the recently retired multi-guitar champions Diarrhea Planet start off Saturday, and the R&B-leaning guitar wizard Melanie Faye warms up the crowd on Sunday.
Alongside his own sets, which never fail to offer memorable moments — last year’s series of Tom Petty tributes comes to mind first — Isbell also offers his fans a curated playlist of artists they ought to be listening to, genres be damned.
At one Ryman show in 2015, Isbell joked that he had to wear shoes with better grip when he played the venue, to keep himself from slipping on parts of the stage where country music legends had worn a smooth spot in the wood. At this point, Isbell has no doubt burnished a spot or two there himself.
