Jamey Johnson’s Weird Band Name

Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Aug. 6, 2008 — "In Color" singer Jamey Johnson released his new album, That Lonesome Song, Tuesday. Oddly enough, the liner notes give producer credit to the Kent Hardly Playboys — a tongue-in-cheek slam of his backing band. Kent Hardly Play, Boys?

"A lot of people don’t even get that," Jamey smirks. "But the way I used to do things was I had a band that did all my studio work. They’d come in, do my demos and my records and stuff like that, and then I had another band on the road that would go out and try to play all that stuff."

That’s actually the way most acts work in Nashville. Studios and concert stages require slightly different approaches, and since musicians and studio rental all cost money, the prevailing thought is that hiring session players is the most cost-efficient way to record. Jamey ended up tossing out the standard rules for this album.

"I just kinda decided I was gonna combine those two bands and get the technique of the studio band mixed in with the groove of the road band," he says. "When we’re on the road, we’re not out there with [studio aids such as] click tracks and tuners and everything else, and we’re havin’ the time of our life. You only get one shot at it tonight, and we’re gonna go in and have the best fun on that song that we can have tonight. We do that every night. I love just bein’ on the road with guys who just love to play. So we put that [approach] in the studio and took the click track (an electronic metronome) off, and it took us a while to get it all goin’. It’s like, ‘Man, this is weird. We’re finally just in here without all the gadgetry and everything else and havin’ fun.’ It was cool. We went a couple passes on a few songs and then just tore off."

That Lonesome Song is a raw, emotional album, and it’s getting excellent reviews. Paste magazine predicts it "will be the best country record released in 2008"; the Associated Press cited it as "the gutsiest, grittiest collection released by a Nashville major label in recent memory"; and The Dallas Morning News deemed it "a country masterpiece for all eras."

And the Kent Hardly Playboys? They really can play.