Jason Isbell
Channel 24, Sacramento
January 26, 2025
Photos by Paul Piazza
Jason Isbell, one of America’s foremost singer/songwriters recently played Sacramento’s Channel 24 along with his highly accomplished band The 400 Unit. There was no opener. This show was built to showcase the songwriting of the unique Alabama tunesmith. Isbell, known for his deeply personal, narrative-driven songwriting, has built a strong career with music that blends Americana, country and rock both as a solo artist and with The 400 Unit.
He shows a genius for empathetic portraiture, painting alienated, lost souls and revealing entire worlds in precise drops of telling detail. His songs explore complex human emotions as well as Southern life and addiction recovery.
Isbell began learning to play the guitar earnestly in his pre-teen days in Green Hill, Alabama. By the time he was sixteen, he had played at the Grand Ole Opry. In his early 20s, he got an on-the-spot opportunity to join the Drive by Truckers when a band member failed to show for an important gig. The Truckers, known for their gritty storytelling and guitar-heavy roots rock attack, had just released their masterpiece Southern Rock Opera.
This led to a storied 5-year run with the band, where he rapidly bloomed into a profound songwriter when he penned “Decoration Day”, a dark, rocking examination of intergenerational violence based on his own family’s lore. That song proved to be so good, that the band named their next album after the cut. He penned other songs for the group that are considered standards as well, including “Outfit” and “TVA.”
Somewhere along the line, the young man from Alabama, who was a bit younger than his bandmates, developed some toxic habits on the road. He eventually left the band and struck out on his own in 2007.
Isbell cut a solo album in 2007 and soon after joined up with The 400 Unit, a group of musicians mostly from the Muscle Shoals, Alabama area. They released their eponymous debut album in 2009.
A few years later, Isbell was able to shake his demons and achieve sobriety with the love of renown fiddler Amanda Shires, whom he subsequently married. She became a frequent collaborator both onstage and in the studio. In 2011, he and the 400 Unit released Here We Rest, which featured the song “Alabama Pines, song about rootlessness and seeking solace in the memories of a better past, was chosen as Song of the Year at the 2012 Americana Music Awards.
In 2013, he released Southeastern, which got massive acclaim, including praise from songwriting luminaries John Prine and Bruce Springsteen. From there, Isbell’s acclaim magnified as both a songwriter and live performer.
While his career has ascended to a higher plane, Isbell has redirected his energies into social action. In 2021, he and the 400 Unit recorded an album called Georgia Blue that benefitted non-profit organizations in Georgia that are focused on voting right and social justice. The record includes covers of songs by Otis Redding, REM, Drivin’n’Cryin’, and other Georgians. He also participated in the Better Than Jail album project, to support improvements in the criminal justice system. He characterizes his approach to social action as “radical empathy.”
Six albums later, he and Shires are no longer together, and post-divorce, they both cut great albums that were about their breakup and heartbreak. Isbell’s is called Foxes in the Snow. He recorded it in five days with only his voice and a 1940 Martin acoustic guitar.
During the Channel 24 set, Isbell and The 400 Unit featured songs from the new record as well as almost every era of the tunesmith’s career. Fans embraced “Outfit” and “Decoration Day,” a pair of songs from his days with the Drive by Truckers.
In fact, Isbell recently reunited with the Truckers for a scheduled appearance for the first time in 18 years. It was for a television appearance on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. This was in celebration of a 4-LP reissue of The Definitive Decoration Day. At the time of the show in Sacramento, there were no plans for an official tour. Naturally, that would go over well.
On this night in Sacramento however, Isbell repeatedly reinforced that he is one of the most formative songwriters and performers of this generation.
The packed house leaned on every word of the metaphorically rich tragedy of “Elephant” and rocked hard to the chaotic, fuzzed-out lifestyle recollections in the rocking “Super 8.” There was a whole lotta everything for everyone. For the final encore, the band closed with a rollicking cover of The Rolling Stones “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” which fit the night perfectly, since it was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound at the beginning of the 70s. That one had the whole room fired-up and boogieing out the door into the January Monday night.
