Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

By Robert K. Oermann
© 2011 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.

Jamey Johnson has a way of defying our expectations. At a time when it is harder than ever to sell full-length albums relative to single digital tracks, he has followed his Mercury Nashville Gold-certified That Lonesome Song with a double album. The Guitar Song contains 25 songs and demands more than an hour of a listener’s attention – yet in September it debuted at the top of the Country chart and at No. 4 on the all-genre Billboard Top 200.

The music video for his anti-Hollywood song “Playing the Part,” written by Johnson and Shane Minor, was filmed in Hollywood and directed by actor Matthew McConaughey. And though at the top of his game as a Country songwriter and record producer, Johnson has also taken a left turn to produce a gospel album for the legendary Blind Boys of Alabama. Continue Reading

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Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

The sound on his albums That Lonesome Song and The Guitar Song has linked Jamey Johnson to the late Waylon Jennings.

So does the sound of one of Jamey’s rides. Because it is, in fact, the very last car that Waylon owned.

Jamey’s got a number of vehicles, but one of his favorites is a 1999 Cadillac El Dorado that belonged to the late Country Music Hall of Fame member. Jamey bought it from an associate of Waylon, who left a few odds and ends in the car. For starters, a change purse that belonged to Waylon’s wife, Jessi Colter, is still there in the glove compartment.

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Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

When Jamey Johnson released his 2008 album That Lonesome Song, he was uniformly hailed for the quality of the songs and the honesty of the performances. The album tipped its hat to traditional country and was recognized in The Nashville Scene’s annual Country Music Critics Poll as the best CD of that year.

Now Jamey’s new double-disc project The Guitar Song is earning similar feedback. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart and it’s getting early recognition as an Album of the Year candidate on the 2011 awards circuit.

All of that’s well and good, though Jamey himself seems less interested than anybody in what kind of accolades it earns. The sales? The marketing? He’s more than happy to let the record label take care of those issues.

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Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

In an era where many consumers buy their music one track at a time, Jamey Johnson has ramped up an old-fashioned idea. He’s not just releasing an album today — he’s putting out a two-disc CD. And for fans who want to go really retro, he’s also making it available as a three-disc vinyl album.

All of that’s appropriate, because Jamey’s drawing on some old ideas about country with The Guitar Song. It includes remakes of songs originated by Mel Tillis, Vern Gosdin, Kris Kristofferson and Keith Whitley. And Jamey did it with an old-fashioned attitude. It was recorded as live as possible in the studio. The recordings were informal, much like the way he sings his songs when he takes them on the road.

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Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Jamey Johnson’s 2008 album That Lonesome Song was a winner, earning nominations for Album of the Year in both the CMA Awards and the Grammys.

The track that drew the most attention from the album, “In Color,” owed its storyline to a black-and-white photograph, and Jamey’s next album will likely carry that theme forward, though it’s unclear if Jamey intended to link the two projects. He told Alabama outlet Our Prattville that the new album, titled The Guitar Song, should be out in June or July. And it’s taken on an interesting shape.

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Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Mercury Records released Jamey Johnson’s “High Cost Of Living” to radio stations exactly one year ago today, knowing all along that it would be a real battle to get it onto the airwaves. It had a rough-and-tumble, throwback sound that owed a huge debt to Waylon Jennings’ late-‘70s records. But even more daunting were its lyrics, which found the singer in jail after going off the deep end with drugs, alcohol and a prostitute.

It did not become a hit, but it did earn the respect of Jamey’s fellow artists and musicians. “High Cost Of Living” is nominated for Best Country Song and Best Country Male Vocal at this Sunday’s Grammy Awards. The CD, That Lonesome Song, competed for country’s Album of the Year honors in last year’s Grammys, as well as the Academy of Country Music Awards and the Country Music Association Awards, and “High Cost” was a key part of the project.

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