It’s tough to know where to start with singer/songwriter Jason Isbell. He has six Grammy awards. Variety Magazine once called him the “Poet Laureate of Rock.” Another critic compared Isbell’s writing style to William Faulkner and John Prine.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Isbell got a part in director Martin Scorsese’s Oscar nominated film "Killers of the Flower Moon."
And, of course, Isbell founded the annual ShoalsFest musical festival, which is returning to Florence next week.
We’ll touch on all that on APR notebook
PAT DUGGINS-- Six time Grammy winner, and founder of the ShoalsFest Music Festival, Jason Isbell, thank you so much for talking to me.
JASON ISBELL-- Thank you for having me on Pat. I appreciate it
PAT-- Now this, this is not the only thing on your "to do" list today, talking to me. I mean. I understand the City of Florence just recognized you on their Walk of Honor. How did that ceremony go?
ISBELL-- You know, it was, it was wonderful. The other people who were inducted, honored, there were so significant, really, you know, a couple of very important journalists. It was, it was Spooner Oldham was there as one of those things where I was truly, genuinely just honored to be included. And it felt good. My mom was here. A lot of my old friends were here. You know? It was, it was, it was a nice thing to see some people from my past and reunite with my hometown in a way that that felt very positive.
PAT-- Now the plaque, I understand, has to have like this sculpture bas relief picture of you.
ISBELL—Yeah.
PAT-- Did they come close? Was it okay?
ISBELL-- It's identical in every way. They chiseled my jaw. It's stone, so it's gonna look just like my actual. No, I'm kidding. It's good. They did a really good job. And there's going to be, like a they have these brick columns, you know, to represent each of the honorees, and it's this beautiful walk. And there's also just some highly significant people from Alabama history on there. So it makes me, makes me really happy.
PAT-- There's a story that goes way back. It's about the Spanish painter, Salvador Dali, and so when he got famous, he said he always loved going to his hometown because nobody cared that he was there. Do you have that luxury? I mean, there are places in North Alabama where you can go and people don't make a fuss?
ISBELL-- You know, like, about my family and my mom's house, and usually, if I don't have a show, people don't make that big of a fuss. You know, like last night, I went downtown in Florence and walked around a little bit, and it looks very different, but it's beautiful. It's grown since, since I lived here, you know, it's changed. There's more business and more people out doing things. So that was really nice. But no, normally people don't make much of a fuss. And I if somebody makes a fuss, as long as they're not throwing rotten tomatoes at me, I'm happy, you know, I like a little fuss.
PAT-- Well, we got the ShoalsFest coming up. Obviously you're the headliner and you're the founder. Now, speaking of hometown life, you know, I'm not a musician. I have absolutely no idea you know how to do what you do for a living. But I could imagine being up on stage and you look out in the crowd, it's like, ‘oh, there's Fred. We went to High School together.’ Is that a good thing for you?
ISBELL-- It's a very good thing. Yeah, it is, because you can very easily get sort of locked in to what you're doing on stage and and not pay a whole lot of attention to the people who are out there enjoying themselves and the people that you're communicating with. So to play in my hometown and know that my family's there, know that my mom's there, my dad's there, and cousins. And you know, it's great to look down from the stage and see those folks, because then you sort of remember where you were when you wrote the songs. And I think that's always a good thing. It puts you in the moment, makes performances better and makes the whole thing more enjoyable for everybody.
PAT-- I remember when I listened to one video you did of (the song) "Outfit" on Father's Day and your dad, that must have been something.
ISBELL-- Yeah, dad still likes that one. I don't play it as much as I used to, but I definitely do it on Father's Day and Anytime he's around.
PAT—So, one thing that I kind of like to do on this program, when I'm talking to somebody who's, accomplished at what they do…is kind of talk to them about how they got from “A, to B, to C” how they got from here to there, and the folks that influenced them along the way. And there's a whole bunch of folks in the Shoals that played a part in helping you, you know, become the man that you are. But the one thing that keeps coming up is David Hood. Now for the the one person, because, you know, this is this podcast could be heard, you know, internationally, so, but the one person who doesn't know David Hood, I would say, ‘Okay, if you don't know David hood, maybe you know Paul Simon's (song) Kodachrome, right? You might know “Old Time Rock and Roll” by Bob Seger, and he (Hood) played bass on both. So, for him to take you under his wing the way he did, how was that?
ISBELL-- Well, you know, I didn't it occurred to me a few years ago that that was not part of David's job, like David was a working musician and trying to do his gig and keep himself busy and take care of his family, just like all the rest of us and I. Um, you know, he really went out of his way to be kind to me and very generous with his time. And the beautiful thing about David, one of the beautiful things about David, is that, you know, there's no, there's no pretense. He puts the work first, and he does it like it's a job. And he, you know, when I was a kid, I would ask him advice like I remember saying, How did, how did you get here? How do you get to be a musician for a living? How do you get to be a famous bass player? And he said, show up on time and make sure your equipment works. And I wanted some, you know, mystical, magical secret that advice could have applied to roofing or, you know, anything else, but it's the same advice, you show up on time and make sure your equipment works. And he said, that'll put you ahead of good solid 75% of everybody else, and you'll stand out and and sure enough, that's how David, you know, lives his life, and that's how that's how I've tried to follow in his footsteps. That being said, he was also being very humble because his bass playing on staples, singers records, you know Paul Simon. It's, it's, it's beyond just showing up and making sure your gear works. There's something about the way he interprets a song that can really make the song more than it would have been otherwise. And I think where I normally start is on (song) “I'll Take You there when Mavis (Staples) says 'little David,' and he plays the bass solo, probably the only bass solo of his life, because he just hates playing solos. He would rather be in the background. But that solo, everybody knows that. You know, that's a recognizable part of American art and and I think David really made that song stronger than it would have been with anybody else.
PAT-- You know, those those songs that I kind of rattled off earlier, you know, Paul Simon, those are, like, from the 70s, see, and you were a teenager, like, you know, the 80s, 90 Yeah, so I was wondering. One of the things that I do is I work with students at the University of Alabama, and when it comes to cultural references, if it's five years old, you're on thin ice, and after ten years old you may as well go home and take a nap. But being at the age that you were at that time, did you really, really understand the impact that the shoals had had?
ISBELL-- Well, we didn't have the distractions that younger folks have nowadays, you know. And it might be harder to nerd out in the way that I did and go back and study this music, if I could just constantly be scrolling through TikTok or Instagram or something so but at the time when I started making music myself, I got obsessed with it, and I spent hours and hours researching. You know, I would find an artist, and then I would say, Well, who are their influences, and who are their influences? And I would work my way backwards. And it was very fortunate that I was from a place with such a rich musical legacy, because, you know, I could go to a lot of the places and talk to a lot of the people who had worked on these albums. And you know, the musicians from here in town, Spooner (Oldham) and David (Hood) and Donny Fritz that they would be playing in restaurants and bars, you know, covering a lot of the songs that they'd played on originally. And because of the liquor laws here, you know, you couldn't really have a bar. It had to be a restaurant. You had to sell more food than alcohol. So they couldn't kick me out from being 15-16, years old. So my parents would drop me off there. I would order an appetizer and stay for four hours and watch people play these songs. I got very, very lucky. I don't know of anywhere else in the world really where that happens, especially that's not a huge city, but it was, it was, it was a big deal for me, because I could go see these folks play these Muscle Shoals songs that were recorded in Muscle Shoals, and I could learn from some of the folks who actually worked for worked on those songs in the first place.
PAT-- So, you know, showing up, making sure your equipment works. Those, those were sound bits of advice, you know, for from David. Did he ever talk about how, okay, this is how the music industry works.
ISBELL-- You know, he didn't, but his son certainly did . Because I joined a band with Patterson hood, David's son in 2001 (The Drive-By Truckers) I was with them for about six, six and a half years, and I learned so much about the business of music from Patterson, mostly because he was kind of a punk, you know, sort of an outlier, and he made his own decisions and remained independent for a long time, and cared a lot about having creative control and about having control over the business of what he was doing. And I mean, when I joined that band, he had a cell phone and a notebook and was booking the tours as we went from show to show. So you know, he would be a few months ahead, but we would be in the van, riding down the road, and he would be on the phone with somebody where we were going to play in six months, setting the show up and getting everything ready. And they had this album called The Southern Rock Opera that came out right before I joined the band, and they sold, I think, 20,000 of those out of the back of the van. Themselves before a label picked it up, and this was in 2001 you know, when that wasn't really the way things were done, yet, they also crowdfunded some of the money to make that album. And this was long before there was a Kickstarter or a GoFundMe or anything like that. And this was Patterson's idea to get the funding to get that album made and get it out. And so when I joined the band, we would have to go have dinner with fans that had invested, you know, and we would have to have sound check parties where investors would come, and it would be the people that he had, you know, called and said, Hey, we're making this record. If you'll invest this much, we'll pay you back, and we'll come play a private show at your house for you. And everybody does this now, but I don't think anybody was doing it 25 years ago.
PAT-- Okay, being famous as you are, there are stories about you that may be true and the stories about you that are complete nonsense. Okay, well, here's one, here's one, and I'm gonna, I want you this, you know, to tell me truth or nonsense. Okay, the story goes that Patterson and the Truckers were having an acoustic party at someone's house, and the guitarist didn't show up. And they're like, hey, Isbell, you want to sit in? Close?
ISBELL-- That's very close. What happened was, I basically lobbied for that. You know, they took a break about halfway through the set, and I said, Hey, I can play these songs, you know, if you want somebody to do the third part. And Rob Malone, the guitar player who was in the band before me, I don't, I don't know exactly how it went down. I think, I don't think he just ghosted. I think he had a prior engagement that he couldn't make both things, but everybody's all right with all of it. Now it's water under the bridge at this point, but I just saw an empty chair, and I said, Patterson, if you'll let me up there. I can play these songs and I won't mess it up. And he did, and that's when I joined the band, and I left with them the next day to go on tour.
PAT-- Getting back to shows. ShoalsFest, you founded the event. You're the headliner. You pick out the artists who are going to perform. I'm kind of curious of what fires you up about that. Is it kind of repaying what the David Hoods of the world that kind of helped you, or preserving the musical heritage of the area?
ISBELL-- I love putting the festival on here, because there weren't a whole lot of venues when I was growing up for out of town bands and nationally touring acts to play. You know, we would go to Norton Auditorium. Sometimes people would come through at University of North Alabama. We would go by and see bands play there. But, but most of what was done here was local, and it for me, it's, it's, it's really fun to mix local with with sort of global touring acts. And the way that I pick out the artist is, is essentially, I just like great songs, and so I listen to people who have great songs, and I try to find a connection to this area. And you know, in the case of Jackson Browne, he obviously a legend, but he's worked with people who are from here. I mean, I just talked to Will McFarland 10 minutes ago, who played and toured someone Jackson did the no nukes stuff with Jackson back in the day. And you know, it's important to me to have a connection with the area for the artist, just so the whole event makes sense, and so the audience can understand, you know, why they're seeing the artists that they're seeing. But the most important thing is just, I like good performances and good songs, and I like putting that on in a location on the river where it's really beautiful. People can relax and enjoy themselves, and I like the fact that it's a smaller Festival. It's not the kind of thing where you know you're gonna have to stand out in the sun for three days with 100,000 people and try to figure out how to go to the bathroom and how to get some water. This is an easy one. This is one where you can cruise in with a lawn chair and relax and have plenty of space and just enjoy a really great show.
PAT-- I guess I brought the heritage thing, because I keep hearing some folks are like, you know, the that, the, you know, the Swampers, the David Hoods. I mean, you know, these guys are getting either nearing retirement age, or maybe, you know, getting close to their “reward,” and there's concern about preserving, what they did. I mean, efforts to keep the keep the music, obviously, but also photographic stuff like that, and they can sure on your part that it was such a big part of your growing up that that unless people do take some care, it might not be there.
ISBELL-- Yeah. I mean, I do think that documentation is important. I think I think attention spans are maybe shorter now than they were, like we were talking about earlier. There's more to distract you, so people might not necessarily do the research that would lead them to those artists and those musicians, but um, for me, you know, if I continue to make music that is informed by the work that they did before me, and I continue to communicate and be open about what my influences are and who I learned from I. Think there's still a lot of people out there who will be interested in that. You know, it's funny because I go to Europe and and play, and we go on tour in like the Netherlands or France or something, and there will be record collectors at the shows who want to ask me about David Hood and about Spooner Oldham and about the records that were made in Muscle Shoals. And, you know, people who just really nerd out on that kind of stuff and take it very seriously. And they've got, like, a big vinyl record culture over there. And I think that's that's a beautiful thing, and it's also something that I have seen sort of taken off in the states too. A lot more people can collect vinyl records here than they used to. I think because it's something that, it requires an action. It's a very active listening experience. You don't put on an LP and forget about it like you do a playlist and go about cooking dinner or watching a game or whatever. You play a record to listen to it, and then when it's halfway done, you get up and you go, flip it over and you listen to the other side. And I think that participation encourages, you know, study and understanding of the way those records were made and of the people who made them, you know. So I think that the legacy of that music will live on, most importantly, because it's just so good, that's the trick. I mean, if you can find anything that beats Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett or Percy Sledge or Aretha Franklin, you know, then you're doing better than I am, because I don't know of any American art whatsoever that has ever eclipsed the quality of that music.
PAT-- Your latest release is “Foxes in the Snow,” and I understand it's also your first solo acoustic album, yes, and I'm sort of wondering, because, like, you know, the people associate you with the Truckers, they associate you with the 400 Unit, but here you are by yourself during those recording sessions. How different was that?
ISBELL-- It was different at first. It was terrifying, you know, because if you mess up, there's nothing to hide behind. But it got to be a little bit liberating in that way, because I didn't have to worry about sometimes you'll be recording a track and, you know, let's say two or three musicians will be playing at the same time, and I'll be the guy that messes it up, and everybody else will get it perfect. And you get all the way to the end, and you're like, I'm sorry, guys, I did it wrong. We got to all try it over again. So that didn't happen. That was really nice, but at the same time, it was a very sort of small, personal, emotional record for me, and one that I feel like worked best with that delivery process. I don't do it forever. I enjoy playing solo acoustic but, but I do miss the horsepower and the camaraderie of having the band around me.
PAT-- I read that you did the whole thing with a 1940 Martin O-17 guitar. So for the non musician out there, why did you pick that one?
ISBELL-- It sat right in the mix. It was the lowest model on the on the food chain for (guitar maker) Martin. At that point in time, was inexpensive, sort of a learner's guitar, a starter guitar for Martin. But in those days, they built those with the same sort of attention to detail that they built their more expensive models. And it's all mahogany. It's a small bodied guitar, so it doesn't have the big, throaty, boomy sound of a big Dreadnought, you know, that would have been way more expensive before World War Two, but over time, that guitar has aged really perfectly. And the size and the volume of it made it work for this record, because it's just a guitar and a voice, you know, and I brought in a bigger guitar, a louder guitar, and it just dominated the frequency range, and it sounded like, you know, that was the most important thing. And this guitar sat in that space just perfectly. And after I did three or four songs that way, I thought, Well, I think it would make sense just to make the whole album with this one guitar. And actually, Martin's doing a signature version of that now they're going to put out a version of that guitar that's really beautifully made.
PAT-- Again, I'm the least educated person in the room when it comes to the music industry, but I get the impression that you can't get a guitar like that off Amazon. How did you acquire yours?
ISBELL-- I was in New. York. And I was staying with my girlfriend there, and she has a small apartment. I mean, big for New York, but small by Alabama standards, you know. But there's a shop in Brooklyn called RetroFret (Vintage) Guitars. And I called my friend Shira, who runs that shop, and said, I need a small guitar to keep in New York City. And so that guitar has been there ever since I got it. It stayed in New York and it's perfect for that apartment. It was, it was great for the size of the space, and it can stay out on a guitar stand and not take up too much room. You know, it's funny, because, like, I grew up in Alabama, I don't have to think about, you know, space in the same way that somebody in a major city has to think about space like parking the car was never a problem. You just leave it in the yard, like everybody else, you know, but up there space and premium. It's at a premium, for sure.
PAT-- Getting back to Foxes in the Snow, and I don't want to get intrusive, I don't want to get too personal, but I've read interviews that you're given that that album kind of helped you work through some issues of your own, your divorce, that sort of thing. Without being intrusive, you could talk about that.
ISBELL-- Yes, you know, that's how I kind of, I mean, I do real therapy too, but I also do musical therapy, from writing songs and singing them for people. And I think there's a witness to it, once you document something and get it down on paper and record it and sing it for people. You know, there's, there's this idea that it, that it somehow is authenticated as being real, and so it authenticates my own experience. And making that record really helped me do that. It was a, it was a very tough time, very, very difficult, you know, very anxious time. I have a 10 year old daughter, and so, you know, figuring out how I could have her with me as much as possible and still make it comfortable for her and make her feel safe and and then negotiating the split, the divorce and the separation and everything that came after that. Those things are never fun, but the music kept me focused, and it kept me centered. And making that album, it reminded me of what my purpose is, and reminded me of the thing that sort of tethers me to the earth and the community. And yeah, so it, it served its purpose in that way for sure.
PAT-- Okay, so before the Beatles, John Lennon really liked studying art in school. So if you know the music didn't work out, he might have done that for a career. You studied creative writing at the University of Memphis, and your work has been declared like, I think it was Variety said that you're like the poet laureate of rock, and your writing style has been compared to everything from like William Faulkner to John Prine. How much of that do we owe? Or do you owe to the time that you spent studying creative writing at Memphis?
ISBELL-- Quite a bit. I think I knew that I was going to write songs when I went to college and and I knew that that's what I was going to do with my life. And so I took a creative writing major because I knew they would make me read, and they would make me write all sorts of different things. And I didn't really go to my advisor, and I didn't do the courses that I was supposed to do, like I was there on a scholarship. I didn't have any money. My parents didn't have any money. So, you know, I had four years, essentially, to get as much out of that as I could, and I knew that I was going into a field where I would not need a degree, so I would just take classes at. Over and over, even I'd made an A in those classes, I would just go back and register for that class again, because I like to teach them, because I learned from it, you know. And sure enough, I didn't wind up getting a degree. They gave me a degree a couple years ago. And it's not honorary, it's a real degree, but it does say the word studies twice. It's something like, you know, degree in studies of musical Creative Studies, and it's like, no, no. I think they made that up. Pat, I think they made that up. But I'll take it and I'm proud to have it. And it's very kind of them to to count. I think I had, like, I don't know, two or three credits left just at the very end, just a few hours left before I finished, but my scholarship ran out, and I didn't have any money, so I went home. But, you know, I think the time that I spent reading and understanding how to write in different forms, poems and short stories and longer forms, it informed me a great deal really, really helped, because those devices, you use them in songs too. You know, allegory and metaphor and just the history of the way the English language has been presented in creative form was very, very important for me to know.
PAT-- Now it's nuts to say, Okay, well, if the music didn't work out, because obviously it is, but if it didn't, could you see yourself been a creative writer instead of a musician?
ISBELL-- Maybe, you know? I think maybe so it's a tough gig, you know. I mean, they all kind of are now in the creative field, and especially with AI now. I mean, people aren't writing nearly as much as they used to. But yeah, I think that's something that I could have done. It's a little bit more solitary, which writing songs pretty solid, but at least you get to go out and perform them for people, and that's something that you don't really get when you're writing books. But, yeah, I think, I think maybe that could have worked. I don't know. I can't even really picture myself as doing anything else, because this is just I never wanted to be an astronaut or a fireman. I always just wanted to be a musician.
PAT-- As we start to wrap up, success in music is one thing, but also, you got yourself a pretty juicy part in Martin Scorsese's “Killers of the Flower Moon." You played Bill Smith in that. I'm kind of wondering, did you approach them? Did they approach you?
ISBELL-- Yeah, I approached them. It was during the pandemic, and we couldn't tour and, you know, so I just told my agent, like, if there's anything I can audition for that's still working and has, like, COVID protocol in place, and they're able to make a movie. And I got a spot auditioning there, and then just kept getting called back until I finally got it. I was shocked, you know, because I didn't have any experience. But Scorsese has been known to put people with no experience in his movies before. It's just a matter of if they're right for the role. And so, yeah, I was terrified when I got there, but after a little while, I realized that I was there for a reason, and that really all the resources that I needed were right next to me. I would just ask somebody, you know. I remember asking Leonardo DiCaprio, ‘hey, how do I do this, you know?’ And he was kind enough to answer honestly and be helpful. And I think I got very lucky, because I was working with people who were at the very top, at the highest level of that field, so they had no problem helping me, you know, not ruin their movie.
PAT-- So did anybody say okay, ‘if Marty Scorsese looks at you like this, or says this, this is what it means.’?
ISBELL-- No, you know, he tells you straight up what he means. He's He's there every day, and you don't ever have to wonder. He has no qualms with saying that was great or that was bad. And I did ask when I started, do I call him Marty? Because that seems to be what people call him, but it feels like I probably shouldn't. They're like, No, we call him Marty. So I call him Marty.
PAT-- So we'll wrap up with ShoalsFest here. Obviously, you're the headliner, but assuming for just a second that you were just a person with a the ticket. What particular artist would you really say? 'Man, I really want to hear this person.'
ISBELL-- Oh, that's tough, see, that's tough for me, because that's how I picked all of the artists. You know, who would I want to see the most? I think Garrison Starr will surprise people. I think she's from Memphis. Her songs are great. Her singing is unbelievable, very, very powerful, very emotional. You know, all the acts are great, but I do think a lot of people will show up not knowing what to expect and get blown away by Garrison.
PAT-- Six time Grammy winner. Jason Isbell, founder of ShoalsFest Music Festival, which is in Florence next week. His latest release is Foxes in the Snow -- Jason Isbell, thanks so much for talking to me.
ISBELL-- Thank you. Pat. Great to talk to you.
