5 Songs - Jason Isbell

Jag träffade min gamle vän och före detta elev Hampus idag på Café Zenit i Majorna. 

Fint att träffa honom igen.

Hampus undrade varför inte jag har kört "5 Songs" på ett bra tag. Bra fråga. Så därför 

blir det nu en 5 Songs med en av de största singer-songwriters i världen just nu, nämligen 

JASON  ISBELL. 

Lite biografi från Wikipedia:

Michael Jason Isbell is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist from Green Hill, Alabama, in Lauderdale County. He is known for his solo career, his work with the band The 400 Unit, and as a former member of Drive-By Truckers for six years, from 2001 to 2007. Isbell has won four Grammy Awards. 

Här kommer de fem låtarna:

"Traveling Alone"

From 2013's 'Southeastern'

This 2013 Isbell song acutely captures the crushing loneliness of the open road, especially when you're traveling by yourself and longing for a companion: "I know every town worth passing through," he says. "But what good does knowing do with no one to show it to?" Shires adds elegiac fiddle and subtle backing vocals to the song, amplifying its ache.

"Something More Than Free"

From 2015's 'Something More Than Free'

The title track to Isbell's Grammy-winning 2015 album doubles as a thesis statement for his entire career. The main character is grateful to be alive and working — "I'm doin' what I'm on this earth to do" — even if it's exhausting, because he's striving for something greater, both spiritual and personal. Lovely, gratitude-filled fiddle from Shires matches Isbell's solemn, worn-in vocals, which only make the song more meaningful.

"24 Frames"

From 2015's 'Something More Than Free'

This song finds a character who's humbled by his own shortcomings and trying to reconnect with things that matter — family, love and selflessness — while recalibrating his sense of the world. Musically, it resembles the laid-back alt-country favored by Wilco in the '90s, with a splash of R.E.M.'s jangle thrown in for good measure.

"Dress Blues"

From 2007's 'Sirens of the Ditch'

Zac Brown Band popularized this song by covering it on their 2015 album Jekyll + Hyde. It's easy to see why the band was drawn to the song: Isbell's original — which was inspired by a high school acquaintance, Marine Cpl. Matthew D. Conley, who was killed while in the line of duty — is a wrenching, plainspoken remembrance of war's casualties.

"Cover Me Up"

From 2013's 'Southeastern'

Isbell's straightforward song about getting sober and opening himself up to wife Shires is one of his best — simply because it is so vulnerable and deeply felt.

"That was a hard one for me to even get through without breaking down the first time, because that one is really personal," he told NPR in 2013. "It's not easy to sit down and open yourself up and say, 'This is how much I love you,' you know? It's scary to do that."

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