Tag Archives: Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit

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Song of the Day #6,262: ‘Strawberry Woman’ – Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit

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.

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Song of the Day #6,261: ‘Kid Fears’ – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit feat. Brandi Carlile and Julien Baker

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.”

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Song of the Day #6,260: ‘Dreamsicle’ – Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit

Jason Isbell’s seventh album, Reunions, came out in May 2020 in the early days of Covid. Its air of melancholy nostalgia proved a perfect soundtrack for those uncertain times.

Recorded once again with The 400 Unit, the album finds Isbell digging into his past. “There’s ghosts all over the record,” he said in an interview. “That’s why I called it Reunions, because that’s what a ghost is: reuniting with somebody long enough for them to tell you what you missed the first time around.”

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Song of the Day #6,259: ‘Something to Love’ – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

Continuing my Jason Isbell deep dive…

The gateway album for a favorite artist (the first work of theirs you hear) always holds a special place. Often it ends up being my favorite release. In the case of Jason Isbell, that album was 2017’s The Nashville Sound.

This record came to my attention after the track ‘If We Were Vampires’ showed up at #20 on the year-end Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll. The album showed up at #5 on the publication’s albums list.

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Song of the Day #6,254: ‘Stopping By’ – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

Jason Isbell toured for a couple of years following his sophomore album release, then took a break to work on his third album. The result, 2011’s Here We Rest, is the record that made me a fan for life.

Here We Rest isn’t the first Isbell album I heard, but it’s the one that cemented him for me as a truly special talent. It’s the moment he fully comes into his own as a solo artist, creating a song cycle that’s achingly sad but reassuringly resilient.

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