Jamey Johnson's 2010 CD, The Guitar Song. Photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.
The "Black" songs include the menacing, partly spoken "Poor Man Blues," the intensely defiant "Can’t Cash My Checks," the sighing and bluesy "Even the Skies Are Blue" and the chillingly aggressive "Heartache." The lighter, "White" songs are highlighted by the strongly autobiographical "That’s Why I Write Songs," the languidly relaxing "Front Porch Swing Afternoon," the rocking "Good Times Ain’t What They Used to Be" and the easy-going groove tune "Macon."
The ambitious project’s textures are many and varied. "Baby Don’t Cry" is a lullaby. "I Remember You" is a gospel song. "That’s How I Don’t Love You" is a deeply sad power ballad. "By the Seat of Your Pants" tells of life’s lessons. The title tune, "The Guitar Song," is told from the point of view of two forgotten guitars hanging on a pawn shop wall. "Playing the Part" and "California Riots" come from feeling out of place as a country boy in Hollywood.
Jamey Johnson is a lover of classic country sounds, and he regularly performs oldies in his stage shows. The Guitar Song contains his versions of Kris Kristofferson’s "For the Good Times," Vern Gosdin’s "Set ‘Em Up Joe" and Mel Tillis’s "Mental Revenge." "Lonely at the Top" is a previously undiscovered gem co-written by the late Keith Whitley.
"Picking the songs for it was easy," says Jamey. "They pretty much picked themselves. We just had to decide which album each one went on and at which point on the record should each one occur. Once we decided where each fit, it was a done deal.
"When I did That Lonesome Song, I was in town all the time. It was just a drive to the studio. But this album here, we’ve had to record things on the fly, on the road, in studios here and there, wherever we were. I think we went around the country five or six times while we were making The Guitar Song."
Recording sessions for the two-hour music collection were held in Los Angeles, Nashville and at Jimmy Buffett’s Shrimp Boat Studio in Key West, Florida. The singer-songwriter began working on it in early 2007 and concluded the project by delivering it to surprised staffers at the Universal Music Group offices in downtown Nashville via an armored car and a guard squad of 40 men in April 2010.
That’s a typically unorthodox gesture from an artist who has always marched to the beat of a different drummer. He was raised outside Montgomery, Alabama in a family that was poor but highly musical. Like many country artists, Jamey first performed gospel music in churches. Unlike most, he is a formally trained musician who understood music theory as early as his junior-high years.
Jamey Johnson is a study in contrasts. He was raised in a devout household, yet he spent part of his youth drinking beer and playing songs at night on the Montgomery tombstone of Hank Williams. He is deadly serious about his music, yet has a wry and witty sense of humor. With his piercing pale-blue eyes and biker beard, he looks like a hell raiser, but he has the heart of a poet. He seems like a rebel, but Jamey Johnson spent eight years as a member of the highly disciplined U.S. Marine Corps Reserves.
