Dire Straits followed up their successful debut album with another release just a year later. That album, Communiqué, didn’t make as big a splash as its predecessor but it did go Platinum in the UK and Gold in the U.S.
Recorded in Nassau, Communiqué offers an interesting blend of blues rock and what can only be described as reggae. That island flair doesn’t show up on every track but when it does it gives a new and unexpected dimension to the record.
It’s a bit early to roll out New Year’s resolutions, but I know one of mine will be to do more Deep (and Shallow) Dives on the blog. So far this year I’ve given that treatment to just one musical artist: Jason Isbell (I also explored the filmographies of David Lynch and Vincente Minnelli).
Last year, I dove into the five-album catalog of Jim Croce and did my first Shallow Dive, covering selected works by Barbra Streisand. Those were all rewarding (for me, at least) and I’m determined to add several other names to the list over the next year.
Jason Isbell’s most recent album, released earlier this year, is a solo acoustic effort recorded in the aftermath of his divorce from Amanda Shires and a new romance with Canadian artist Anna Weyant.
Like so many heartbroken artists before him, Isbell turned his breakup into meaningful, melancholy art. Even the songs about new love, like today’s SOTD, are tinged with sadness. He knows that some of his greatest love songs were written about a romance that didn’t last.
One reason I know Jason Isbell is a special talent is that he can write issue songs without losing me. I almost always bump up against overtly political songs, but he finds a way to make them work.
Isbell’s ninth album, Weathervanes, has a couple of those. One, ‘King of Oklahoma,’ tackles the opioid crisis and another, ‘Save the World,’ is a response to the Uvalde school shooting. In both cases, the songs succeed because he digs into the messy emotional truth at the core of the issues. He doesn’t write polemics, he writes diary entries.
On the eve of the 2020 presidential election, when it looked like Joe Biden could defeat Donald Trump by holding the Blue Wall and flipping some reliably red states, Jason Isbell took to Twitter:
“If Biden wins Georgia I’m gonna make a charity covers album of my favorite Georgia songs- REM, Gladys Knight, Vic Chesnutt, Allmans, Cat Power, Precious Bryant, Now It’s Overhead, etc… And damn is that gonna be fun.”
Meet Me In Montauk 