Looking for good news this morning. It's a pretty lean morning for news of the "good" variety. Finally, I settled on this story: Jason Isbell: Voting for Doug Jones 'right thing to do'. Jason Isbell was born in Green Hill Alabama, now lives in Nashville. He did an acoustic set for Doug Jones, the guy running for Senator against, well, you know, that Republican Abomination. Funny, I guess it's a long-shot for Jones to win. It's that kind of Alabama we have now, that kind of Republican party, that kind of country.
Isbell did a free, get out the vote, 6 song acoustic set. I am a fan. Loved his work with the Drive By Truckers (see Decoration Day), and lately I've been stuck on "Something More Than Free." Funny, at first I was a bit underwhelmed, then I was overwhelmed, at first thought maybe I hated it, then pretty sure I loved it, now, I'm very sure I like it quite a bit. Isbell is a singer-songwriter of great distinction. Subtle, nuanced, a bit downbeat, or really a chronicler of the simply tragic. His songs are like Southern-tinged fragments of woe and beauty. For some reason I think of Jason as the Raymond Carver of singer-songwriters. Crystalline, downbeat, heart-stirring. Deep soulful imagery and stories of the "common folk."
So anyway, this is what I really liked about finding this story this morning. As a performer myself, this rings oh so true to life of a working musician:
"Clad in a plaid shirt, dark jeans and brown boots, Isbell was poised and relaxed, even as a sound engineer wrestled with feedback and initially applied cover-band levels of reverb to the vocals. Isbell was happy to just play his mini-novels of songs in a stripped-down fashion for a throng of superfans."
Death by the Sound Tech. I know it well. Anyone who has played music out in the world knows this story too. So yeah, this is the story of the "good variety" I found this morning. And I guess it's a smart story too. The good is always tinged with the bad, the sad and the sort of tragic too. Right? One lone man, in the spotlight, battling feedback and reverb, singing his heart out for a long-shot miracle.