This spring, Jason Isbell broke a record.
No other artist had ever sold out four sequential nights at the Ryman, but Isbell did — easily. Most tickets were gone in minutes, months before his fifth LP, Something More Than Free, had even been released or a lick of new music made public. Clearly, Nashvillians were willing to take a gamble on Isbell, paying to spend a night (or four) with a set of songs they'd yet to even hear.
But that's the thing about Isbell: He's the rare songwriter whose albums have become not just collections of songs to like or dispose of at will, but chapters in a continuing story. On the off-chance one of those ticket-holding fans ends up not liking Something More, they'd still probably want to hear what the singer has to say on the record; they'll still probably put in repeated listens to allow each metaphor to simmer, to flip to the back of the postcard once or twice. They'd want to know if he's still sober, how things are with his wife, musician Amanda Shires, and the baby due in the fall. It's not too common for an Americana artist to capture such diehard interest in not only his work but his life; in the case of Alabama-born, Nashville-residing Isbell, it's all about the ability to write with the most aching truth, even when it's not his own truth he's singing about.
And that's what makes Something More so magical: There's truth that lies in every note, both his and ours. Sometimes that honesty is reassuring, and sometimes it hurts like hell. Take "Children of Children," where he sings, "I was riding on my mother's hip / She was shorter than the corn / All the years I took from her / Just by being born" to a melody that evokes "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes." How do we process guilt over something that we had no control over? There are times throughout the song where you don't know if he's singing from his own point of view or taking on the character of his teenage father. It's a punishing way to think — are our thoughts ours, or what we were told growing up? And it's a gut-wrenching way to spin a lyric.
Americana as a genre has reached a point of slight exhaustion — even Mumford & Sons ditched their banjos and turned to rock — but Isbell wears the title better than most, if not the best. Something More, produced by Dave Cobb, who worked with Isbell on the masterful, post-sobriety breakthrough Southeastern, touches on many facets from the broad American playbook, while toning the tiresome, banal genre conversations down to a hum. It's the songwriter that matters here, and the country licks, bluegrass twang or Southern rock riffs are just how he brings these stories to life, not an exercise in trying to color inside the lines.
"I fight the urge to live inside my telephone," he sings on folk-honky-tonk album opener "If It Takes a Lifetime," a song that balances his own fight to redeem those darker moments while avoiding getting lost in modern times. Musically, a smart fiddle romp courtesy of Shires and some gospel harmonies hold the tune together. "Teach me how to unlearn a lesson," Isbell sings on the beautifully stripped-down "How to Forget," once again teetering his past self with the person he's become — or maybe always was, before wandering down unwise paths, like we all do.
Isbell's native South is changing rapidly. New condos are being built where old Victorians once stood, inspiring tears of sadness; Confederate flags are coming down, inspiring tears of joy. It's this balance of uncomfortable transition with the fear of losing an identity that makes this record so powerful on songs like "Palmetto Rose," which is about a Southern tradition that's maybe nothing more than a cheap tourist ploy. Vendors sell Palmetto Roses on the streets of Charleston for a quick buck, carrying on an old Civil War legend of Confederate wives giving the talismans to their husbands to keep safe on the battlefield.
"Palmetto rose in the sidewalk mud, dirty rotten stem and a big green bud," Isbell sings to a bluesy beat like a less gravelly Tom Waits. "Catch 'em coming out of the King Street store, bullshit story about the Civil War." In a time obsessed with commoditizing Southern culture but ashamed by its past, no one captures this dichotomy as poignantly as Isbell does. He knows that the mythology on this side of the Mason-Dixon line is often one haunted with terrible ghosts, but he also understands that there are people still fighting small battles here daily: fighting to be heard, make rent, to stay sober. That Palmetto Rose might have thorns that sting, but Isbell can see that sometimes the person selling them might just be trying to put dinner on the table.
And thus the album title: Something More Than Free. Isbell has traded in some freedoms for others; he's not a prisoner of addiction anymore, but he can't keep roaming the streets alone 'til dawn, either. He has a wife and soon a family, and a four-night Ryman run to play. In the title track, he depicts a man too tired for church, or even to hang his clothes, waiting for that intangible "reward" that's something more than free. Bro country may try to sing at an everyday, working class America, but this is really the anthem they deserve.
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