Singer Jamey Johnson strips away the pretense

By John Benson

The country singer found his groove on ‘That Lonesome Song.’

Similar to how in 1991 Kurt Cobain and his grunge music exposed the hair metal nation as schlock-y entertainers, new country artist Jamey Johnson is currently having the same effect on the bloated Nashville sound.

Granted the watered-down Eagles hooks and poppish crossover material have been a de rigueur Nash-Vegas vibe for over a decade, but if this Alabama native has his way, the country singer-songwriter storyteller from yesteryear is about to make a comeback. Not only has his new album “That Lonesome Road” produced top 10 hit “In Color,” but it’s currently nominated for three Grammy Awards and was listed by critics as the best of 2008. So what exactly is Johnson’s secret?

“Man, if I knew the recipe I probably wouldn’t share it with you,” laughed Johnson, calling from Nashville, Tenn. “I don’t know man, it’s just I’ve always done things the same way from sitting down writing the songs to going and making a record. It just feels great.

“It’s kind of giving me and the band a fresh take on what we need to do from now on with our music — that’s just the same thing we did the first time, which is get it down to where you can feel it. If I can feel it then I can pass that on to somebody else. That’s a hell of a lot better than any click track or tuner is going to do.”

After honing his skills in the minor leagues for a few years (including writing Trace Adkins’ hit single “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”), Johnson finally got called up to the big show with his 2006 debut release “The Dollar.” Though the title track was a top 20 hit on country radio, the album wasn’t exactly what his record label was hoping for. So Johnson was inexplicably let go. That’s when free agent Johnson feels he finally found his groove and recorded “That Lonesome Song.”

“On the first one, there were songs I wanted to put on that album that I couldn’t because we were told, ‘No,’” Johnson said. “It got kind of frustrating trying to make that album but the way it ended up, there’s not a single song on that album that I don’t love or stand behind. But there’s a difference, and I think the fans who bought it don’t want to find out their album is assembled by a committee. When a committee sits around and puts together an album, you just have a collection of songs that this group of people likes.

“The way we made ‘That Lonesome Song,’ we didn’t take a poll. Me and my band went into the studio, passed a bottle of whiskey around for about three hours and a football and pretty much just sat there until we felt like it was time to go and make some music. We literally just picked a song off the desk and that kind of led into other songs. While we were in there recording on one, another would hit me. We just kept going down the line.”

So far, that line has proved potent for Johnson and company. He points out that fans have embraced “That Lonesome Road” as a whole versus an album with a few singles and lots of filler. Not only has it been a while since Nashville produced a top-to-bottom thinker that can deliver but from a concert standpoint the tell-it-like-it-is artist takes his audiences down a musical road that is both entertaining and educational.

Johnson said he enjoys interspersing his own music with plenty of covers that tell the whole story of his musical sound. That means fans taking in his show tonight at the Dirty Boot Saloon in Lisbon should be ready and willing to hear anything from Kris Kristofferson and Roger Miller to Willie Nelson, David Allan Coe, Bob Seger and maybe even an old Ray Price or Vern Gosden song.

“The ones who do have our record and who do love country music, they’ll know what to expect when they come out,” Johnson said. “I think it’s going to be a fun night. We’ve been playing sold out shows across the Southeast, and we aim to please. We don’t like to have people walking away feeling like they didn’t get their money’s worth.”