“I Traded that for Cocaine and a Whore”

I’m assuming there are blogs that cover country music same as the blogs that cover rock or alternative or whatever. Problem is, I listen to very little country, so anything that happens there usually flies outside my radar.

This weekend, I read not one, but two reviews of the new Jamey Johnson album, That Lonesome Song, which happens to be a country album. A review in Rolling Stone was the one I read most recently, as well as the one that’s close at hand. That review refers to Johnson as the new “Man in Black,” and calls his songs “tales of drug abuse and marital ruin sketched in shades of black and blacker.”

Ah, yes – music I can relate to. I promptly rushed out to get That Lonesome Song so I could see what all the fuss was about. The album more or less delivers. Honestly, I usually prefer my country more in the Hank III vein, but there is something true in Johnson’s lyrics that got me to listen and I found I could relate to a lot of what he was saying. “Women keep our heads spinning,” he sings in a song titled “Women.” “I just can’t ever seem to make one stay.” We’ve all been there.

Johnson comes out of Alabama. After an ill-fated attempt at college, he spent eight years in the Marine Corps. After leaving the Corps, he began playing country music in various bars throughout Montgomery, Ala.; one of his first gigs was opening for David Allan Coe. By 2000, Johnson had moved to Nashville, Tenn., in pursuit of a career in country music. One of his first connections was with Greg Perkins, a fiddler who had played for Tanya Tucker and other artists. Perkins invited Johnson to sing as a duet partner on a demo tape.

That Lonesome Song is Johnson’s third album; in 2002, he self-released They Call Me Country, and released his second disk, The Dollar, in 2006. That Lonesome Song was originally released last year, as a digital-only release. The digital release caught the attention of Mercury Nashville Records, which released an actual CD in August.

If you're fortunate enough to live in or near Nashville, you can catch Jamey Johnson October 10 at the Opryhouse. If not, well, check out the song below and go buy his albums, dammit!

High Cost of Living.mp3

Labels: country music

posted by aikin @ 7:10 PM