News Archives: 2021
David Crosby und Jackson Browne mit starken Alben
July 29, 2021
Direkt aus dem dpa-Newskanal
Berlin/Los Angeles (dpa) – David Crosby wurde 1941 in Los Angeles geboren, der sieben Jahre jüngere Jackson Browne wuchs als Kind in der Küstenmetropole auf. Es ist aber vor allem ihre Musik, die sie bis heute zu Weltstars der berühmten Westcoast-Szene macht.
Ihr Sound: eine mit viel kalifornischem Lebensgefühl angereicherte Stilmixtur aus US-Folkrock und Country, Flower-Power-Pop und Jazz, die in den 1960er und 70er Jahren zeitweise global die Radiowellen, Charts und Kritiker-Hitparaden dominierte.
Ikonen einer glorreichen Ära
Man muss kein Prophet sein für die Vorhersage, dass die nun gleichzeitig erschienenen Alben der Veteranen nicht mehr dieselbe Wirkung erzielen werden wie vor Jahrzehnten ihre Meisterstücke. Wie auch? Crosbys Platten mit The Byrds oder Crosby, Stills & Nash (zeitweise auch inklusive Neil Young) sind Ikonen einer Ära; Brownes melodieseliger Songwriter-Pop von einst ist immer noch ein perfekter Soundtrack für sanfte Hippies der Seventies und danach. Beide Musiker sind schon lange Mitglieder der Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame – also eigentlich Museumsstücke.
Und doch: David Crosby (79) poliert mit “For Free” seinen etwas verblassten Glorienschein nun ebenso auf wie Jackson Browne (72) mit “Downhill From Everywhere”. Besonders erstaunt bei beiden betagten Herren, wie fantastisch sich ihr unverkennbarer Gesang gehalten hat.
Ihre Stimmen klingen 1A
“Das weiß ich echt nicht”, sagt Crosby, der im Zoom-Interview der Deutschen Presse-Agentur sehr alt aussieht und sehr jung klingt, kichernd auf die Frage, welche Wundermittel seiner hellen, klaren Stimme seit über 50 Jahren helfen. “Ich tue nichts Besonderes dafür. Okay, ich rauche keine Zigaretten mehr, das hilft. Aber ich rauche natürlich Marihuana, sogar eine ganze Menge. Doch das scheint meiner Stimme eben nicht zu schaden. Solange sie so gut funktioniert, werde ich sie zur Hölle noch mal benutzen.” Ja bitte.
Browne wiederum erzählt im Fachblatt “Rolling Stone” (Juli-Ausgabe), sein dunklerer Gesang bleibe “einfach durchs Singen” schön. Er gibt aber auch zu, vor Jahren mal “bei verschiedenen Gesangslehrern” gewesen zu sein. “Diese Sorge, wie ich so gut wie möglich singen kann, begleitet mich schon mein ganzes Leben. Und mit gut meine ich nicht stark. Manchmal ist leise besser als kraftvoll.”
Doch was wären feinste Vocals, wie sie diese Westcoast-Helden nun schon seit Ewigkeiten zuverlässig drauf haben, ohne starke Songs? In dieser Hinsicht hat sich vor allem Grammy-Gewinner Crosby auf “For Free” selbst übertroffen – mehr noch als bereits auf seinen vier vorherigen Comeback-Platten nach langer Solo-Pause, von “Croz” (2014) bis “Here If You Listen” (2018).
Song von Joni Mitchell
Schon das Titelstück ist eine Offenbarung der Songschreiber-Kunst. “For Free” stammt allerdings von Joni Mitchell, Crosbys ehemaliger Freundin, die er bis heute verehrt. “Ich denke, sie ist die Beste von uns allen”, sagt er dazu. “Ich liebe ihre Lieder. Sie ist eine schwierige Frau (lacht), aber eine fantastische Songwriterin, Sängerin und Musikerin. Ich kann Joni einfach nicht widerstehen.”
Aufgenommen hat Crosby die Ballade im Duett mit der 30 Jahre alten Sängerin Sarah Jarosz, den Klavier-Part übernahm sein Sohn James Raymond. Bei dessen Erwähnung gerät der mit einem mächtigen Walross-Schnäuzer ausgestattete Musiker im Interview erneut ins Schwärmen. “Es ist ein Geschenk, mit einem solchen Sohn gesegnet zu sein. Ich sage den Leuten gern, dass ich der glücklichste Kerl überhaupt bin. James ist zu einem Songwriter gereift, der nicht nur so gut ist wie ich, sondern manchmal sogar besser.” Mit “I Won’t Stay For Long”, dem Schlussstück auf “For Free”, habe immerhin nicht er selbst, sondern Raymond den besten Songs des neuen Albums geschrieben.
Gar nicht angestaubt
Prägnante Altherren-Kollaborationen für die zehn Folk-Jazz-Perlen ergaben sich mit dem 73-jährigen Donald Fagen (“Rodriguez For A Night” dürfte der beste Song sein, den dessen Band Steely Dan nie aufgenommen hat) und mit Michael McDonald (69), der legendären Stimme der Doobie Brothers. “Das sind alles Leute, die die Musik in ihrer echten Substanz lieben”, sagt Crosby, der immer schon gern zusammen mit Kollegen Songs schrieb. “Sie kommen nicht nur fürs Geld her.” Routiniert oder gar angestaubt klingt hier tatsächlich nichts. Und zwei weitere Alben seien schon in der Mache, kündigt der Künstler kurz vor seinem 80. Geburtstag (14. August) an.
“Er ist ein feiner Songautor, ein wirklich guter Mensch, der immer versucht hat, freundlich zu sein, solange ich ihn kenne”, sagt Crosby der dpa über Jackson Browne. “Wir sind Freunde. Er liegt mir sehr am Herzen, auch wenn wir nicht miteinander abhängen, weil wir in unterschiedlichen Städten leben.”
Auf seinem harmonischen, hochsoliden Alterswerk “Downhill From Everywhere” erreicht Browne zwar nicht ganz die Flughöhe des älteren Kollegen. Doch wer seine Fabel-Alben “Late For The Sky” (1974) oder “Running On Empty” (1977) gern hört, dürfte auch mit den zehn neuen, teils mexikanisch und spanisch angehauchten Liedern kaum fremdeln.
Die warme Stimme des inzwischen graubärtigen Westcoast-Troubadors ist natürlich die halbe Miete. Und Songs wie “Minutes To Downtown”, “Love Is Love” oder das (wie so oft beim Altlinken Jackson Browne) politisch aufrüttelnde “Until Justice Is Real” vermitteln das Gefühl, einem klugen Freund zu lauschen. Am Ende widmet er seiner Wahlheimat den sonnigen “Song For Barcelona”. Nein, entgegen dem pessimistischen Albumtitel geht es mit diesem Singer-Songwriter keineswegs bergab.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:210722-99-482427/3
Read MoreDavid Crosby und Jackson Browne mit starken Alben
July 29, 2021
https://www.rtl.de/cms/david-crosby-und-jackson-browne-mit-starken-alben-4801643.html
23. Juli 2021 – 13:39 Uhr
Berlin/Los Angeles (dpa) – David Crosby wurde 1941 in Los Angeles geboren, der sieben Jahre jüngere Jackson Browne wuchs als Kind in der Küstenmetropole auf. Es ist aber vor allem ihre Musik, die sie bis heute zu Weltstars der berühmten Westcoast-Szene macht.
Ihr Sound: eine mit viel kalifornischem Lebensgefühl angereicherte Stilmixtur aus US-Folkrock und Country, Flower-Power-Pop und Jazz, die in den 1960er und 70er Jahren zeitweise global die Radiowellen, Charts und Kritiker-Hitparaden dominierte.
Ikonen einer glorreichen Ära
Man muss kein Prophet sein für die Vorhersage, dass die nun gleichzeitig erschienenen Alben der Veteranen nicht mehr dieselbe Wirkung erzielen werden wie vor Jahrzehnten ihre Meisterstücke. Wie auch? Crosbys Platten mit The Byrds oder Crosby, Stills & Nash (zeitweise auch inklusive Neil Young) sind Ikonen einer Ära; Brownes melodieseliger Songwriter-Pop von einst ist immer noch ein perfekter Soundtrack für sanfte Hippies der Seventies und danach. Beide Musiker sind schon lange Mitglieder der Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame – also eigentlich Museumsstücke.
Und doch: David Crosby (79) poliert mit “For Free” seinen etwas verblassten Glorienschein nun ebenso auf wie Jackson Browne (72) mit “Downhill From Everywhere”. Besonders erstaunt bei beiden betagten Herren, wie fantastisch sich ihr unverkennbarer Gesang gehalten hat.
Ihre Stimmen klingen 1A
“Das weiß ich echt nicht”, sagt Crosby, der im Zoom-Interview der Deutschen Presse-Agentur sehr alt aussieht und sehr jung klingt, kichernd auf die Frage, welche Wundermittel seiner hellen, klaren Stimme seit über 50 Jahren helfen. “Ich tue nichts Besonderes dafür. Okay, ich rauche keine Zigaretten mehr, das hilft. Aber ich rauche natürlich Marihuana, sogar eine ganze Menge. Doch das scheint meiner Stimme eben nicht zu schaden. Solange sie so gut funktioniert, werde ich sie zur Hölle noch mal benutzen.” Ja bitte.
Browne wiederum erzählt im Fachblatt “Rolling Stone” (Juli-Ausgabe), sein dunklerer Gesang bleibe “einfach durchs Singen” schön. Er gibt aber auch zu, vor Jahren mal “bei verschiedenen Gesangslehrern” gewesen zu sein. “Diese Sorge, wie ich so gut wie möglich singen kann, begleitet mich schon mein ganzes Leben. Und mit gut meine ich nicht stark. Manchmal ist leise besser als kraftvoll.”
Doch was wären feinste Vocals, wie sie diese Westcoast-Helden nun schon seit Ewigkeiten zuverlässig drauf haben, ohne starke Songs? In dieser Hinsicht hat sich vor allem Grammy-Gewinner Crosby auf “For Free” selbst übertroffen – mehr noch als bereits auf seinen vier vorherigen Comeback-Platten nach langer Solo-Pause, von “Croz” (2014) bis “Here If You Listen” (2018).
Song von Joni Mitchell
Schon das Titelstück ist eine Offenbarung der Songschreiber-Kunst. “For Free” stammt allerdings von Joni Mitchell, Crosbys ehemaliger Freundin, die er bis heute verehrt. “Ich denke, sie ist die Beste von uns allen”, sagt er dazu. “Ich liebe ihre Lieder. Sie ist eine schwierige Frau (lacht), aber eine fantastische Songwriterin, Sängerin und Musikerin. Ich kann Joni einfach nicht widerstehen.”
Aufgenommen hat Crosby die Ballade im Duett mit der 30 Jahre alten Sängerin Sarah Jarosz, den Klavier-Part übernahm sein Sohn James Raymond. Bei dessen Erwähnung gerät der mit einem mächtigen Walross-Schnäuzer ausgestattete Musiker im Interview erneut ins Schwärmen. “Es ist ein Geschenk, mit einem solchen Sohn gesegnet zu sein. Ich sage den Leuten gern, dass ich der glücklichste Kerl überhaupt bin. James ist zu einem Songwriter gereift, der nicht nur so gut ist wie ich, sondern manchmal sogar besser.” Mit “I Won’t Stay For Long”, dem Schlussstück auf “For Free”, habe immerhin nicht er selbst, sondern Raymond den besten Songs des neuen Albums geschrieben.
Gar nicht angestaubt
Prägnante Altherren-Kollaborationen für die zehn Folk-Jazz-Perlen ergaben sich mit dem 73-jährigen Donald Fagen (“Rodriguez For A Night” dürfte der beste Song sein, den dessen Band Steely Dan nie aufgenommen hat) und mit Michael McDonald (69), der legendären Stimme der Doobie Brothers. “Das sind alles Leute, die die Musik in ihrer echten Substanz lieben”, sagt Crosby, der immer schon gern zusammen mit Kollegen Songs schrieb. “Sie kommen nicht nur fürs Geld her.” Routiniert oder gar angestaubt klingt hier tatsächlich nichts. Und zwei weitere Alben seien schon in der Mache, kündigt der Künstler kurz vor seinem 80. Geburtstag (14. August) an.
“Er ist ein feiner Songautor, ein wirklich guter Mensch, der immer versucht hat, freundlich zu sein, solange ich ihn kenne”, sagt Crosby der dpa über Jackson Browne. “Wir sind Freunde. Er liegt mir sehr am Herzen, auch wenn wir nicht miteinander abhängen, weil wir in unterschiedlichen Städten leben.”
Auf seinem harmonischen, hochsoliden Alterswerk “Downhill From Everywhere” erreicht Browne zwar nicht ganz die Flughöhe des älteren Kollegen. Doch wer seine Fabel-Alben “Late For The Sky” (1974) oder “Running On Empty” (1977) gern hört, dürfte auch mit den zehn neuen, teils mexikanisch und spanisch angehauchten Liedern kaum fremdeln.
Die warme Stimme des inzwischen graubärtigen Westcoast-Troubadors ist natürlich die halbe Miete. Und Songs wie “Minutes To Downtown”, “Love Is Love” oder das (wie so oft beim Altlinken Jackson Browne) politisch aufrüttelnde “Until Justice Is Real” vermitteln das Gefühl, einem klugen Freund zu lauschen. Am Ende widmet er seiner Wahlheimat den sonnigen “Song For Barcelona”. Nein, entgegen dem pessimistischen Albumtitel geht es mit diesem Singer-Songwriter keineswegs bergab.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:210722-99-482427/3
Read MoreJackson Browne isn’t bothered about being original in his first album for seven years… he is not looking to make life harder for himself or his listeners
July 29, 2021
In the Olympics of pop, two countries dominate the medal tables: the US and the UK. Broadly speaking, if you value originality, Britain is the winner, although of course there are American trailblazers, from Chuck Berry to Fiona Apple.
If you prefer proficiency, then, with notable exceptions such as Eric Clapton, America wins hands down.
Jackson Browne, now 72, isn’t bothered about being original. The man who co-wrote the Eagles’ Take It Easy is not looking to make life harder for himself or his listeners. 
+1
Jackson Browne, now 72 (above), isn’t bothered about being original. The man who co-wrote the Eagles’ Take It Easy is not looking to make life harder for himself or his listeners
His smooth Californian soft rock has barely changed since 1974, but that’s fine because he’s so proficient at it.
Downhill From Everywhere is his first album for seven years. It’s as if he went to sleep and woke up when Donald Trump was gone, which may be a mercy as Browne has long been a vocal eco campaigner.
On these ten new tracks his politics poke through only occasionally. They’re songs in the key of a long life.
With A Human Touch he delivers the ballad that lockdown demanded, pulsating with love and pain. On Minutes To Downtown he contemplates mortality while apparently addressing his girlfriend, Dianna Cohen, who is in her 50s.
‘The years I’ve seen that fell between my date of birth and yours,’ he sings, ‘fade beyond the altered shore of a river changing course.’ It takes some skill to write lines that long and make them sing.
Another gem is entitled Still Looking For Something. It could be about Bob Dylan, who hasn’t let his 80th birthday stop him branching out. For his latest trick he staged a livestreamed gig called Shadow Kingdom.
The setlist was enticing: Forever Young returned after ten years off, Tombstone Blues after 15. The sound was refreshing: a soulful acoustic ensemble rather than the usual blues-rock thump.
The atmosphere was alluring: a bar packed with young people, smoking like there’s no today.
And the singing, at first, was exasperating – thin and grumpy, as if Dylan didn’t want to be there. But then he found the tenderness beneath his tetchy rasp and delivered a gorgeous version of To Be Alone With You.
The show, which cost $28.75, expires at 8am tomorrow. If you know any die-hard fans, you may want to drop in on them today.
Read MoreAlbum: Jackson Browne – Downhill From Everywhere
July 29, 2021
https://theartsdesk.com/new-music/album-jackson-browne-downhill-everywhere
Album: Jackson Browne – Downhill From Everywhere
Still giving a shit
It’s hard to believe that it’s almost 50 years since I splurged a day’s Saturday pay on For Everyman, Jackson Browne’s second album. The title track alone was worth it. A couple of years on and Late for the Sky yielded “Before the Deluge” and “Fountain of Sorrow”.He’s written some great songs – and let’s not forget that “Take It Easy”, co-written with Glenn Frey, gave the Eagles their first hit. Another singer-songwriter from the fabled Laurel Canyon scene.
Downhill From Everywhere, a pretty good summing-up of where we all are, is Browne’s first album in seven years and only his 15th in total: a modest output in such a long career. But then he’s a perfectionist. Written before Covid (which he caught) upended the world that Trump had so fatally destabilised, it’s easily recognisable as Jackson Browne, in terms of both overall style and his voice, which remains in good shape with the characteristically world-weary tone. It’s his usual mix of the personal and the political, the two aspects of his life and work kept always in balance, as he demonstrates once more in “Song for Barcelona”, the album’s closer.
Working with guitarists Greg Leisz and Val McCallum, bassist Bob Glaub, Jeff Young on keyboards, Mauricio Lewak on drums, and vocalists Chavonne Stewart and Alethea Mills, all long-time collaborators, and recording close to home in Santa Monica, Browne the craftsman serves up an album that was several years in the making yet which remains fresh and topical. The issues don’t go away, the can simply gets kicked down the road. The title track worries about the oceans – environmental catastrophe is the album’s underlying theme – and the ruin we continue to inflict. In the week two megamillionaires launched themselves briefly into space, the line about “all mankind’s ambition and vanity” sure hits home.
There are moments of real tenderness: “A Human Touch”, which is what we’ve been missing all year, is beautiful, a proper duet, Leslie Mendelson sharing the vocal with Browne, their entwined voices underpinned by Leisz on pedal steel. “The Dreamer” bowls along, its upbeat Tex-Mex style deliberately at odds with the subject, the heartbreak stories of those who “cross oceans and deserts and rivers/ Carrying nothing more than the dream of what life could be”. The song is co-written with Eugene Rodriguez, founder of Los Cenzontles, a band which began as part of a California Arts Council artist residency, and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos. It’s sung in English and Spanish, the story told through the eyes of one young woman who “pledged her future to this land”.
The album ends in exhilarating rumba-flamenco style, complete with Raúl Rodriguez’s palmas and a chorus in Catalan, with “A Song for Barcelona”, a love song to the city “that gave me back my fire – and restored my appetite”, a city in which he can imagine living, “in my escape from rock and roll”.
“No one gives a shit but Jackson Browne”, Randy Newman sang in “A Piece of the Pie”. Browne’s not the only one but he’s certainly kept the faith. Let’s hope he doesn’t make his escape quite yet.
Read MoreAlbum reviews: Jackson Browne – Downhill from Everywhere and Leon Bridges – Gold-Diggers Sound
July 29, 2021
Jackson Browne’s new record shows a master songwriter with the wind in his sails, while Leon Bridges stays the R&B course after a maelstrom of genre-blurring albums
Read MoreJACKSON BROWNE: DOWNHILL FROM EVERYWHERE
July 29, 2021
https://www.folkradio.co.uk/2021/07/jackson-browne-downhill-from-everywhere/
by Mike Davies 21 July, 2021
Jackson Browne – Downhill From Everywhere
Inside Recordings – 23 July 2021
His first new material in six years, Downhill From Everywhere, finds Jackson Browne on vintage form, marrying hummable melodies to both perceptive social commentary lyrics and love songs, addressing doubt and dignity, the need for justice, connection and tolerance in turbulent times. His lyrics are informed by a sense of encroaching mortality, that of the world as much as his own (“I’m way out over my due date baby”), with, as he sings on Until Justice Is Real, “Time like a fuse burning shorter every day”.
Downhill From Everywhere was recorded with an accomplished core band that includes Greg Leisz and Val McCallum on guitars, bassist Bob Glaub, drummer Mauricio Lewak and Jeff Young on keys. It opens with Still Looking For Something, a melodically laid back rolling rhythm number. Musically, it harks to those early albums with their West Coast vibe as he sings about always hoping for a better future (“I knew since I was just little/The sharp edges of the world will whittle/Your dreams down to shavings at your feet/Gonna do my best not to settle/I know it’s gonna test my mettle/To keep my options open- even so I’m hoping”).
With the drums taking the pace up, co-penned with McCallum, My Cleveland Heart (a reference to the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic) is a playful number with a serious undercurrent about how life would be if we were fitted with unbreakable, artificial hearts (“They’re made to take a bashin’/And never lose their passion …Don’t make mistakes/And they don’t know defeat”).
Russ Kunkel taking over the drum seat and Young on Hammond, the first of the lengthier tracks arrives with the chugging beat, Minutes To Downtown, an upbeat and autobiographical number about it never being too late to find love (“I didn’t think that I would ever feel this way again/No, not with a story this long and this close to the end”), in this case with someone younger (“The years I’ve seen that fell between my date of birth and yours/Fade before the altered shore of a river changing course”). However, the song could equally be about leaving his longtime love, LA, for new pastures.
With yet another drum seat swap to bring in Jay Bellarose with Leisz on the pedal and lap steel and Patrick Warren on keyboards, up next, co-written with Steve McEwan and Leslie Mendelson, the latter duetting with Browne is, to my mind, the album’s greatest track, A Human Touch, a quietly beautiful song about finding connection regardless your sexual orientation (“You can call it a decision/I say it’s how we’re made… There will always be pain/But because of it there will always be love”), a song I’d rank up there with Before The Deluge and The Pretender.
Love Is Love hits the mid-way mark with a Caribbean lilt, as a song that reminds us that everyone has their troubles, even in those places that we fantasise as some island paradise (“here, on the broken city streets of the island/People work and live and love and struggle every day”) but, Alethea Mills and Chavonne Stewart on backing vocals, there is still hope (“Rick rides a motorbike through the worst slums of the city/The father and the doctor to the poorest of the poor/Raising up the future from the rubble of the past/Here they say – L’espua fe viv – Hope makes life”).
Edging six minutes, the title track, written with Leisz and Young, is a Browne riff-driven rocker that’s essentially a list number about everything going to shit that speaks of polluting the oceans and takes a swipe at the NRA, the GOP and the ICE.
Another standout comes with the lilting Texicana sway of The Dreamer, a bi-lingual collaboration with Eugene Rodriguez which, based on a young woman they both know, is about a Mexican immigrant facing deportation, with Browne calling on those who see only enemies and walls to realise that is these that “Keep us prisoners of our fear”.
Browne has long been an activist and, with its tribal thump rhythm and Waddy Wachtel’s electric guitar, Until Justice Is Real takes its title from the rallying cry of the activist group Color of Change who aim “to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people in America”. As to the Stonesy-sounding Start Me Up guitar licks, he pointedly declares, “You want the truth you got to find it on your own/It may not be that easy to see/The truth is going to cost you in the land of the free/It’s a good question to be asking yourself/What is the good life, what is wealth?/What is the future I’m trying to see?/What does that future need from me?”
It closes with the two longest cuts, first the scuffed drums and understated resonator guitar of A Little Soon To Say, a song that conjures humanity looking for something they can’t quite place, not realising “all we’ve ever needed/Has been there all along inside of you and me” as, mingling hope and doubt, he sings “I want to see you holding out your light/I want to see you light the way/Beyond the sirens and the broken night/Beyond the sickness of our day/And after all we’ve come to live with/I want to know if you’re ok/ I’ve got to think it’s going to be alright/It’s just a little soon to say”.
It ends with the eight-minute plus A Song For Barcelona, another bi-lingual number written by the entire core band, a tango rhythm, handclaps and foot stamping love song to the Spanish city that “that gave me back my fire – and restored my appetite” with a lyric that echoes the sentiment of Before The Deluge as he sings of a gathering of souls united by a common vision:
They come from Ireland, they come from Africa
They come from the US, they come from Canada
They come from Norway, they come from China
They come from Uruguay, and from Bulgaria
They come for pleasure
They come for freedom
For the chance encounter
Or the revelation
They come for business
Or for adventure
And fall in love with the information
About the world, and about each other
They dream, and when they wake up
They’re not in Spain anymore
Browne has described the song as him envisioning a life beyond music (“my escape from rock n roll”), as just another face in the crowd, suggesting perhaps this may be a swansong? Whether that proves to be the case or not, Downhill From Everywhere is a glorious high.
Downhill From Everywhere is out on 23 July.
Read MoreJackson Browne: Downhill from Everywhere review – voice of the boomers faces his mortality
July 29, 2021
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/15/jackson-browne-downhill-from-everywhere-review
(Inside Recordings)
Still regarded as the most artful of 1970s west coast singer-songwriters, Browne frets about the environment and his use by date
Alexis PetridisThu 15 Jul 2021 12.00 BST
“I’m still looking for something,” sings Jackson Browne on the opening track of his first album in eight years. “I’m way out over my due date.” It sounds like a stark admission, as if he’s as surprised as anyone that he’s still recording at 72.
Browne’s reputation has helped keep him aloft. He was the most artful of the 1970s west coast songwriters, who didn’t just spill his guts in confessional style but chronicled the boomer generation’s uncertain and increasingly disillusioned path through a landscape in which hippy idealism had withered: “Caught between the longing for love and the struggle for legal tender,” as he put it on 1976’s The Pretender, a song that fairly accurately presaged the dawning of the yuppie era. When the yuppie era duly arrived, he didn’t necessarily grow with his audience – a significant portion of them deserted him, presumably turned off by his increasingly strident leftwing tone. By the mid-80s, there were substantially fewer takers for Browne’s angry and accusatory Lives in the Balance than for the less specific, well-things-have-certainly-changed wistfulness of his old pal Don Henley’s Building the Perfect Beast – though some of them returned when he dialled down the politics on 1993’s I’m Alive.
Nevertheless, decades later, there is a sense in which Browne still embodies the classic boomer singer-songwriter, at least insofar as he spends a lot of Downhill from Everywhere doing precisely the kinds of things that septuagenarian songwriters of a certain cast tend to do, including worrying about the environment, wondering aloud about the younger generation, dabbling in global music (there’s a Caribbean lilt to Love Is Love and a distinct Latin-American flavour to the rhythms of closer A Song for Barcelona) and writing love songs to a new partner who is evidently considerably younger than he is. “The years I’ve seen that fell between my date of birth and yours / fade beyond the altered shore of a river changing course,” he sings on Minutes to Downtown.
Browne is good at all this stuff. A May to December romance is a tricky topic to essay in song without sounding like, as Smash Hits would have put it in the 80s, Uncle Disgusting. (Let us pause and spend a moment of horrified silence recalling Chris de Burgh’s 1994 hit Blonde Hair, Blue Jeans as an example of the absolute worst that can happen.) But Minutes to Downtown pulls it off, perhaps because it focuses on Browne’s age (“close to the end”) rather than that of his partner. The whole thing is shot through with a sadness based in encroaching mortality.
The title track feels like a distant relation of 1974’s Before the Deluge, which also viewed nature as a terrifying, ultimately ungovernable force. And Browne has had plenty of practice at what used to be called “message songs” – including practice at getting them wrong. Perhaps haunted by the thought that not everyone who bought his 70s albums agreed with him about the Reagan era (“Among the human beings in their designer jeans, am I the only one who hears the screams?” he pondered on 1983’s Lawyers in Love) he developed a tendency to lyrically beat people over the head. The causes he supported were just, and you never doubted his sincerity, but you did occasionally wonder how much good lecturing people would do. That doesn’t happen here. Or at least not much: there’s a definite whiff of ham-fisted hectoring about Until Justice Is Real, but The Dreamers’ story of an illegal immigrant focusses on the small human details and is more moving and powerful for it. A Little Soon To Say is better yet, surveying Generation Z with a very realistic, genuinely touching cocktail of hope and parental concern that they might not be able to fix the mess they’ve inherited: “Beyond the sickness of our day and after what we’ve come to live with / I want to know if you’re OK.”
In the US, Browne is a longstanding part of the cultural landscape, the author of a string of platinum-selling albums, regularly hailed as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. In Britain, he remains more of a cult concern. He’s never had a Top 20 album here, his solitary hit single was a cover – a 1978 live version of the Zodiacs’ old doo-wop classic Stay – and his best-known songs are those sung by others: Take It Easy, the song he co-wrote with Glenn Frey for the Eagles and, at least since the release of The Royal Tenenbaums, Nico’s gorgeous, wintry version of These Days. Downhill from Everywhere isn’t the kind of album that is going to alter that imbalance. The music is slick and well-crafted – as you might expect, given the abundance of veteran LA sessioneers in the credits – rather than gasp-inducing. But then, at 72, Browne probably isn’t in the business of overturning expectations and fishing for new fans. You suspect that as long as his albums can justifying staying out over his due date, he’s happy. Downhill from Everywhere does.
Downhill from Everywhere is released 23 July.
Jackson Browne on cancel culture, his ‘shelf life’ and how to survive rush hour in L.A.
July 27, 2021
BY AMY KAUFMANSTAFF WRITER JULY 26, 2021 5 AM PT
Jackson Browne knows people think he’s past his prime. Or “way out over my due date,” as he puts it on his new album.
“I’m talking about shelf life,” he says. “But I think a lot of stuff is still good after the date that’s printed on the package.”
At 72, the musician is grappling with what his life will amount to — that’s really what the lyric is about, he says: “An admission that you’re supposed to have settled stuff by this time.”
It’s not that he had a vision for what life in his 70s would be like; he’s never looked that far into the future. But he has always been a self-reflective sort, unafraid to question whether he’s squeezing all of the juice out of the fruit. Even one of his first hits, “Doctor, My Eyes” — released in the midst of the Vietnam War — told the story of a man puzzling over how to digest the hardships of the world.
Browne’s eyes are still wide open on “Downhill From Everywhere,” the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s first collection of new music in six years. On the album, the singer-songwriter takes typically forthright stands on ocean pollution, immigration rights and gay marriage. Though he grows somber when he discusses current events, Browne also seems to have softened with age — exuding less of an obstinate attitude than an equable one.
In the late ‘60s and ‘70s, Browne established himself as one of Laurel Canyon’s preeminent songwriters with now-standards like “These Days” (written when he was 16), “Take It Easy,” co-written with the Eagles’ Glenn Frey and “Running on Empty.” Back-to-back smash albums “The Pretender” and “Running on Empty” made him a full-fledged rock star, but gradually he would pivot his music and career away from pop philosophy and toward the political. He organized “No Nukes” benefit concerts against nuclear weapons and nuclear energy alongside Graham Nash and Bonnie Raitt in 1979 and condemned U.S. policy in Central America on his 1986 album “Lives in the Balance.”
Browne still champions numerous causes; he was performing at a fundraiser for the charity God’s Love We Deliver in March 2020 when he became one of the first stars to contract COVID-19. He likes experimental theater — he’s wearing a shirt from Tim Robbins’ Culver City-based the Actors’ Gang nonprofit — and seeing live music with some of the young artists he’s befriended, like Dawes, Jenny Lewis, Inara George and Phoebe Bridgers. (Earlier this year, Bridgers enlisted Browne to duet with her on a new version of her song “Kyoto,” and she in turn then appeared in a music video for his song “My Cleveland Heart.”)
Browne, who lives in Los Angeles’ Mid-City with his longtime partner, Dianna Cohen, has two adult children from previous marriages.
This week, he heads out on a three-month tour with James Taylor that will stop in Anaheim in October. The Times spoke with Browne at his Santa Monica recording studio, Groove Masters, where Bob Dylan, Frank Ocean and David Crosby have made music.
What made you decide to record an album after six years?
The way you pose the question presupposes that there’s getting ready. I’ve had a studio for 30 years. I’m always doing something. It’s more like there’s a residue you gather or a condensation that gathers.
You once said that your standards plague you. Do you still feel that way?
I think I was talking about the fact that it’s not a good idea to try to write a song as good as some other song you’ve already written. Because when you wrote that song that you thought so highly of, you weren’t holding it up to some other standard; you were just trying to write something new. Look, I’ve got a high opinion of some of my songs, but to write something new you have to forget everything you’ve ever done.
You sing on this album about being concerned for the future your children will inherit. What scares you?
I am in a state of grief for the world that my kids are inheriting — my grandson. Elephants and tigers are in danger. The ocean’s got dead spots in it. The reefs are dying. The natural world’s ability to bounce back from what we’ve done is an existential threat. … We’ve got these electric cars, so why don’t more people have electric cars? Why don’t we phase out fossil fuels? They won’t until they’ve sold us every last thing they have. I don’t get to talk about this stuff very much in conversation. So for me, the challenge is to write a song that people don’t mind hearing and that helps galvanize some sort of feelings or helps them find some resolve.
When you started more politically themed music in the 1980s, were you worried about losing your audience?
I know it was considered problematic by some people in the music industry to talk about politics. But they were never my people. You hear people like, ‘Oh, he’s losing an enormous part of his audience by talking about this.’ They’re talking about sales and s— like that. That never mattered to me anyway. Please.
It didn’t matter to you at all?
When you sing about stuff that nobody knows anything about, the recognition for what you’re doing is gonna drop off. At the same time, a bunch of other things were happening that are probably more responsible for the popularity declining, like punk music. You’re just not 25, now you’re 33, and there’s a completely different aesthetic going on and an attitude about everything that’s come before, rightfully or wrongfully dismissing you.
Many of your reviews cite you as being a really serious person. Do you think that’s fair?
I’ve had people remark on that to me, like, “Oh, I expect you to come in with sheaths of newspapers and notes and stuff.” There was this great remark that Don Was made. He was asked about a song that was political, and he said, “Oh yeah, we’re kind of political. Well, we’re not like Jackson Browne, where we’re with a pointer and talking about troop movements.” It was a funny thing to say.
I was playing at a Christmas show in Asheville a few years ago, and I sang this song about war called “The Drums of War.” Later, I was talking to one of the guys on the show and said, “Maybe I kind of sandbagged these folks. You think I shouldn’t have sang them a song about the war [at] Christmas?” He said, “People know you, Jackson. They’re not gonna be shocked that you sing a song about the war.”
How do you get your news?
I’m just kind of old school: I read. I can’t stand television. Even calling it television shows I come from another century. There are newsletters I get and books, and I really like radio. KPFK Pacifica. In L.A., I try to drive when my programs are on. I don’t mind rush hour because the Tim Ferriss program is probably on, and it’s a good way to spend an hour.
You’ve developed relationships with a lot of younger artists. How did those friendships start?
That’s the music that really moves me. I feel really lucky to know all these people, and I guess I know them because I go to their shows. I met Phoebe at a party, but I hadn’t heard her play. It was a birthday party for [Australian singer-songwriter] Tal Wilkenfeld at an escape room. I was sure we were gonna escape, but we didn’t make it. Funnily enough, the room was about a pandemic. But it was hard to figure out. But later, when I heard her music, I went, “That’s Phoebe. That’s that girl I met. Holy s—.”
What did you like about it?
If I want to use the word “gratitude” in a sentence, it would be about artists like Taylor [Goldsmith, from Dawes] and Phoebe, who are bringing an emotional literacy and prowess with words to rock lyrics again. It hasn’t been absent; Lucinda Williams and Randy Newman have been there all along. But when you see somebody young applying themselves to those kinds of skills, it’s encouraging because it makes you think that is on the rise and that a more youthful segment of the population will be exposed to that.
Did any musicians serve as mentors to you when you were young?
David Crosby agreed to sing on my first record. He absolutely showed me how to record — how to multitrack vocals. He praised me to others and to myself, and that was really important. I feel a great debt of gratitude to David.
But you no longer speak to him?
That’s true. He said nobody he’s ever made music with will talk to him anymore. I would point out that his son makes music with him, and that’s really what’s at the heart of his productivity right now, is his great relationship with his son. I don’t really want to go into the details of why we’re not talking.
There was a good documentary made about him recently. Do you ever think about being a part of a film like that or writing a memoir?
I’ve thought about it because it’s been proposed. I may eventually not be good for much else, so I’ll leave myself enough time to sound off about stuff. I kind of feel like I don’t know anything.
I’m sure people would love to hear your stories — and about dating the likes of Nico, Joni Mitchell and Daryl Hannah. Carly Simon wrote a really good memoir about her marriage to James Taylor.
Who’s interested in that though? Who’s interested in Carly talking about James?
Uh, me? A lot of people!
I’m not very interested in that stuff. Have you read Linda’s [Ronstadt] book? Now that’s a good book. It’s about music. Yes! People don’t want to know about Jerry Brown and Mick Jagger and all of the people Linda had relationships with. Besides, you have to be a really good writer. And I can’t even write a postcard.
What are your thoughts on cancel culture?
I’m not very aware of cancel culture, because I’m basically helpless about social media and the kind of quick, fast-breaking news about s—. That washes over me. I’m concerned that “canceled” has become a reflexive thing. My version of cancel culture is just turn it off or change the channel.
To use an example involving people you know, Phoebe Bridgers and Mandy Moore — they were part of an investigation alleging that Ryan Adams was emotionally and verbally abusive. As a result, some say he should be canceled.
I think powerful men have been taking advantage of their status with women and that should stop. … I think it made a big impression on everybody that [Bridgers and Moore] came forth and talked about it. That’s their right and their responsibility to tell the truth and why we like their work.
I worry about [cancel culture] though because there are examples of actors, supposedly, who I think are tremendously gifted and I don’t know what all they did. … In some cases, it sounds really bad. In some cases, it sounds like, really? They patted somebody on the butt and so we should not see this person’s movies now? I don’t know. I’m not just trying to wriggle out of your question. I’m just trying to say that I’m actually not a good person to [talk about this] because I’m so uninterested in that stuff. I wouldn’t watch the O.J. trial.
What are you hoping your fans will take away from your new album?
You mean, you want me to boil it down? It’s not for me to say. There are no CliffsNotes for these songs. I’m not that self-conscious. I’m not worried about what people are gonna think about me. This is not an ad for myself. This is a collection of songs with me really trying to express myself.
So you don’t think about how you’ve evolved musically?
Honestly? The things that I think about are trying to sing in tune and making the song sound good.
Why keep making new music?
[Laughs] I just thought that this morning. There’s so many other things going on. What could possibly be a more glacial f—ing process than writing a song about climate change, for instance? What it gives me is a song to sing that can be sung on an occasion, and sometimes that occasion is where people have gathered together to do something about something. I like the way I just said that, because it’s very all-inclusive. It may sound like I’m being vague, but I mean it gives me a song I can sing that reaffirms what I think.