Jackson Browne will release his new album, 'Downhill From Everywhere,' this Friday, July 23.
Jackson Browne will do a handful of dates starting later this month with longtime friend and peer James Taylor. Talking about touring with Taylor, Browne calls him, "The standard bearer for the singer/songwriter movement."
It's interesting to hear Browne say that. For many, Browne was the face of the '70s singer/songwriter movement. Browne was a multi-platinum star during that time who released some of the greatest music of that era. His flawless 1974 album Late For The Sky is, in my opinion, just behind Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks and Joni Mitchell's Blue as the greatest singer/songwriter album of all time.
But Browne, as he hasn't been for years, isn't worried about status or sales. He became a hero to many of his peers in the '80s for albums like Lives In The Balance, where he used his considerable voice and reach to focus on the problems in Central America on the title track.
Turning 73 in October, Browne, who says, "I'm a better singer now," has mastered the art of mixing the personal and political, as he does brilliantly on his powerful new collection, Downhill From Everywhere (out this Friday, July 23). Whether it's on the vulnerable opening track, "Still Looking For Something" and the witty "Minutes From Downtown" to the pointed "The Dreamer" and "Until Justice Is Real," Downhill From Everywhere is why Browne is in both the Rock And Roll and Songwriters Hall Of Fame's.
I spoke with Browne about the new album, how Taylor has inspired him his whole career and why his whole musical identity comes from listening to John Lennon and the Beatles.
Steve Baltin: How have you been doing?
Jackson Browne: I’m good, good. I’m just sort of in the place I’ve been for the last year and a half. Taking on guitars like a sinking ship.
Baltin: You were one of the first musicians to have gotten COVID. How did it impact you having it early on?
Browne: Interesting you ask that. Because I didn’t mean to announce to anybody that I had it. I was telling someone at Rolling Stone that I couldn’t do the home Zoom thing they were asking me to do because I was sick. They were premiering a single that I was putting out so I would have something to play on tour. And it just all happened at once. The songs "A Little Soon To Say" and "Downhill From Everywhere" were being released then and I just candidly said, "Well I do have it." And that became the story. So I didn’t really mean to make a big press release that I had it. But it wound up, I wound up being inundated with calls and texts and emails. It just took me days. I never even got all the way through answering them because I’m not used to getting that much correspondence. It’s interesting because, yeah, I knew a number of people that had it. I didn’t have a very rough time of it but they did. Two of my friends were very, very sick and fortunately they made it through but it was close.
Baltin: You and I have talked for years about music being prophetic. So much of this album seems prophetic, though from what I understand most of the material for this album was written before the pandemic, correct?
Browne: Yeah, it was pretty much in the works. The songs were in the works, with the exception of a few lines on one song and maybe how much of "A Song For Barcelona" to sing in Catalan. These kinds of things. I really ended up spending more time on that one song. [laughs] I was working with an engineer. I’d had it and gotten over it. We were wearing masks and we were distancing. At one point he said, "We’ve been working on this song for a month. " I didn’t realize, because I was just trying different things. The active recording has always been sort of commingled with writing. It’s not really clear when the writing leaves off and when the recording begins. Usually I’m still writing a song while I’m recording it. In the case of " A Song For Barcelona" kind of overachieved there and wrote a whole bridge in Catalan. And I couldn’t record it until it was safe to record in a room with five or six people. So I was waiting to record it while I worked on it. And even after I recorded it I spent a lot of time messing around with it. But yeah, the thing about being quarantined and having a lot of time, I think the songs kind of cured in a way. They sort of aged right in the recording process.
Baltin: The opening of "My Cleveland Heart" very much struck me as '70s Warren Zevon. And I don’t know if that was an intentional nod or if you’ve just listened to it so much it’s built into your subconscious.
Browne: There’s a part of me that’s always resonated with how Warren approached a subject. I don’t flatter myself. I’ve never been able to write like Warren. He was just such a brilliant satirist. And this song is satirical but it’s very much influence by him I would say. But I in no way, conflate or equate what I’m doing with what Zevon was able to do. And I sing his songs all the time. People call for them at my shows because they know that I know some of these songs. I’m as willing as anybody to stop what I’m doing and sing some of his songs instead.
Baltin: Have you started performing any of the songs from Downhill From Everywhere?
Browne: One, "My Cleveland Heart." I did a virtual performance of that. With Val McCallum]. We wrote that song together and we can’t choose who is to sing it. That song developed in a really wonderful way. Because that was an option. Which part should I sing in the chorus? And I can sing the answer part but it didn’t work. So it wasn’t my first choice to have him suddenly sing the answers but it worked beautifully. And now that I’ve done two videos of it, it really works great.
Baltin: Are there songs off this album you've thought about how you will bring them to the stage?
Browne: I always have that in mind: "How I’m going to do this? How am I going to do this later?" And in the case of "A Human Touch," I can’t sing the female part and the male. It’s a duet, it was written as a duet. But the singers that sing with me, either one of them could sing that part, it’s easy for them. It’s wonderful that it’s a duet. The way that I solved that problem the last time I went on tour, I just invited Leslie Mendelsohn to be my guest and she came to a bunch of shows. First we invited her because I was in New York playing at the Beacon, and I invited her to come on and do it because she was there. And it was just so good that I said, “Hey, do you want to come to these other gigs too?” And she did. We wound up planning it that way. I don’t know that she’ll have the time to do very much of that with me, because she’s got her own gigs but I’ll figure out a way of doing that song. And I have to be able to replace other musicians at given times. No one can give touring all of their time. Everybody’s got kids, people have families and family life and stuff. I’ve already got subs for one of the singers, I’ve got a sub for one of the guitarists.
Baltin: We spoke back in 2016 about one of my favorite songs of yours, "That Girl Could Sing," and why you played it so rarely.
Browne: I tell you, "That Girl Could Sing" is something I did take the trouble to learn and it just about taking the trouble to learn it. We have what it takes. The girls in my band can sing it. Not everyone realizes that it was done in real time with real voices and it sort of delayed. "In the dead of, dead of night, shine, shine a light." That was Doug Haywood singing the answers to me. And most people think it was just a done with a delay, so it was my voice delayed. But it's not. And Jeff Young learned it, it's a trick you have to practice. But the deepest part of "That Girl Could Sing" to try to do is the David Lindley solo cause you can't just have someone smear it with a lot of lead guitar, it's a certain thing. And Greg Leisz can learn stuff that David Lindley originated. In fact David Lindley couldn't always do it on that song. We were recording it and we did this basic track and it was amazing, but I wanted to redo some of the solo. He played the solo live, so if you listen to that it's got a certain sound. It's him hitting the magnet, the horseshoe magnet that's on the slide guitar, wraps around the strings, with his finger pick. So no one really has those instruments. Greg does, but the point is when I told him I wanted to do the solo again so the solo could go and reach to the high note, he said, "Okay, I'll go find that amp." Then he said, "You can't have that sound anymore, that's gone." I go, "What do you mean?" "I did that on a certain amp and the speaker broke and I had it re-coned, and it's different. It doesn't make that sound anymore." (Laughing) "You can't mean that, it's not gone? It can't be recreated?" And we tried, I made him try, and he was right. It just was gone. And he's a little bit perverse in enjoying that cause David Lindley used to always quote Eric Dolphy, the great jazz saxophonist, who said, "The notes go into the air and they're gone." I think it gave him a lot of pleasure to tell me, "You can't have that, there's no more of that" (cracks up). But if we follow that arrangement meticulously there's usually something extra happens. There's some good stuff in that song that you get by trying really hard to adhere to that arrangement. I'm lucky because Greg Liesz is well versed in Lindley's tone. And there times he quotes David. Like in "Running On Empty," he'll start it and you'll think you're hearing David Lindley the first eight bars or something.
Baltin: Are there songs that having now not played them in a while you are excited to bring back?
Browne: Yeah, I think my version of what you're talking about is as I get ready to go out on tour I'm not gonna be able to play...on the shows I'm doing with James Taylor I've got an hour to do my best set. But it's an opening set, I can't really do what you do at the end of a concert. It's not gonna have that culminating kind of feeling. So I just gotta try and represent both some of the songs from the new album and the best of what I've done. I figure it's a little bit of playing to a more general audience. My diehard fans will be there, but it won't be all my diehard fans. It'll also be people who have a passing acquaintance with my music. The job is to open the evening. So there are songs I think will work. I decided I'll probably start the night with "I'm Alive." And I also figured out a way to open that song up a little bit. I sing differently now, I think I sing better. But if I sing a song like "Late For The Sky" I realize that song begins with a guitar introduction. For most people, who listen to that song they're listening to that record, and that's what the song sounds like when it starts. So I think I'm gonna take the trouble to learn that. Like I was saying about taking the trouble to learn "That Girl Could Sing," there are two things. I'm proud of the fact these songs can be done by anybody or they can be done by me in a completely different way and the song still holds up. But if I go and do the original arrangement I think it will have a kind of a value in alive concert. I want people to go, "Oh! I love this song" right as they hear the introduction.
Baltin: How much fun is it to go out on the road with someone like James who you have known for my guess is 50 years?
Browne: It is a real thrill. It's unbelievable because James has always been like my guide in a way. He sort of recorded before I did and of course I knew his records before I ever met him. But I also got to play with some of his players. I got to make my first record with guys who were playing in his band. So in a way I learned a lot from him and he's always been a kind of beacon for me in terms of singing, writing and playing. He was the kind of standard bearer for the singer/songwriter movement. There were singer/songwriters before of course, but it sort of became a thing that people thought of as a particular, distinct chamber of rock and roll. I like thinking of Keith Richards as a singer/songwriter, anybody who sings and writes their own songs. But James, of course, is a master. He's written some of the greatest songs of all time. And his band is one of the best bands you'll ever go hear. And one or two of them are people I've gotten to play with before, so it's very family feeling. And James is a great host. He is very hospitable and makes everyone feel excited and present in the moment, including thousands and thousands of people in a baseball stadium, where you can hear a pin drop. He's completely changed the dynamic of what it means to be in a huge gathering and hear these songs. It's partly that everybody knows the songs really well, but it's also partly that you know James really well. And he has a calmness and a confident solidness in his singing and playing that can be completely relied upon. It's exciting, it's like a master class. I've only gotten to do a few shows with him in that kind of setting, baseball stadiums. But most of them will be in arenas. And again, we assume because you're in a big arena that you gotta make a lot of noise. As a matter of fact my whole, writing, my whole attitude about performing changed when I started playing 20,000-seat basketball arenas. And I lost the thing I'm talking about. If I had it, it sort of subsided while I learned how to play in a stadium.
Baltin: What do you take from the new album when you listen to it as a whole work?
Browne: A lot of these songs were written over a period of years, so the songs developed over a period of several years and they're more about the time we're living in. And some of them really are amplified by what we've lived through in the past year, COVID. Like "A Human Touch" really takes on an extra meaning. But also "Until Justice Is Real" is made more resonant by the Black Lives Matter demonstrations of the past year. And the ongoing awakening to those issues in our culture, which has been unresolved our entire lives. So these things are not of the moment, they're of our times.
Baltin: But you've always been a master of that, mixing the personal and the political. Is there one artist you admire the most for their ability do that?
Browne: John Lennon because I grew up listening to the Beatles. And you have room on your albums to hear the most intimate song, "She's Leaving Home," say, as well as "A Day In The Life." So the breadth and the depth of the Beatles and the ability to move from a very intimate picture to a very universal one informs I think my whole life, my whole idea of music, what music is for.
