Jamey Johnson’s "Lonesome" Therapy

Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Aug. 4, 2008 — There’s an old adage that "you have to take the good with the bad," and Jamey Johnson knows a little more about that than he prefers.

Two years ago, Jamey was on top of the world: Trace Adkins was having a hit with his song "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk," George Strait had recorded his song "Give It Away," and Jamey was enjoying his first hit as an artist with "The Dollar."

It all seemed to unravel in short order: His wife filed for divorce, and his record company went through a merger and dropped him. Jamey, who’s earned a lot of attention of late with his song "In Color," went into a personal tailspin.

"At a time when you wanna celebrate and have fun and everything else, I couldn’t, ‘cause I was goin’ through misery at the same time," he says. "I kinda caught myself just pourin’ alcohol on it. I thought it was a celebration; the next thing you know, I’m just devastated. So I quit drinkin’ for over a year while I got over it."

Around the end of his sober year, in April 2007, Jamey started recording That Lonesome Song, a new album that comes out tomorrow. It’s a raw, emotional project that includes "In Color" and covers of two songs from Waylon Jennings’ Dreaming My Dreams album. Jamey funded the project himself before finding a record company to release it.

He won’t talk badly about his former label or his ex-wife, but after both of those splits, he does say it’s important to think long and hard about major relationships before you enter into them.

"Divorce is not easy," Jamey notes. "Staying married ain’t easy either. If it was easy, everybody would do it, and as we all know, the divorce rate is right down the middle. It’s 50/50. When you say ‘I do’ and ‘forever’ and all those frilly words the preacher makes you say, you better mean it. And you better stand behind it. Forever is longer than three and a half years. It’s a long, long time."