Jamey Johnson Previews Surprise Christmas EP and Reveals New Indie Direction
For a while now, every last fan or journalist who has spoken with Jamey Johnson has wanted to know the same thing: When is he going to put out new music? It’s been two years since he gave now-Country Music Hall of Fame songwriter Hank Cochran’s work a deeply dignified, deeply felt, guest-aided studio treatment on the tribute album Living for a Song, and four since Johnson stocked the double album The Guitar Song with material that added up to a gnarled, knotty, yet elegantly crafted portrait of human resolve. It was honky-tonk as high art from a one-in-a-generation talent.
And then there was silence, the Alabama-born singer-songwriter mired in business contracts he found untenable.
A month or more ago, a large banner appeared on Johnson’s website bearing four cryptic but promising words: “New Music Coming Soon.” Word spread around the blogosphere last week that that new music would take the form of a holiday EP titled The Christmas Song — perhaps not the sort of project folks were expecting from the artist behind two of the darkest country albums this century, The Guitar Song and its predecessor, That Lonesome Song.
Give a listen, though — the EP is available on iTunes — and you find that a collection of Christmas standards in the gingerly swinging Frank Sinatra/Nat King Cole/Bing Crosby vein makes good musical sense coming from Johnson. He’s so accomplished at inhabiting steely roles that it’s easy to forget how deftly he can deliver more tender sentiments; how nimble a song interpreter he is; what a responsive band he employs.
There’s this, too: the EP contains the waltz-time “South Alabam Christmas,” the first new Jamey Johnson composition to see the light of day since his 2010 double set — and certainly the first ever to feature a mini-solo from him on flugelhorn.
As it turns out, The Christmas Song isn’t the only new music Johnson has in the works. It’s simply the first release on his newly launched, independent label Big Gassed Records, which will allow him to write what he wants, produce who he wants and get it out when he wants. Johnson called Rolling Stone Country from the combination office and studio he leases in the historic, recently sold and soon-to-be-purchased-by-preservationists RCA Building on Music Row to expound upon the news.