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Jackson Browne works through life, again, on ‘Downhill From Everywhere’
July 27, 2021
The new album by Jackson Browne is heartening for several reasons, not the least of which is that almost 50 years after touchstone works like For Everyman and Late for the Sky helped a generation of young romantics cope with life’s disappointments, Browne is still the master of crafting lyrics that not only sound good, but that get to the heart of sometimes complicated matters. And Browne can turn that trick in a variety of settings, both emotional and musical.
Downhill From Everywhere
Jackson Browne
Inside Recordings, July 23
8/10
It’s also gratifying that on Browne’s new album, Downhill From Everywhere, he sounds as if he’s barely aged from when he was a 20-something songwriting prodigy who rolled out those morose classics, as well as the subsequent major hit album, 1977’s Running on Empty.
Truth is, Jackson Browne has been there for us all along, checking in every several years with pointed poetry about social and personal injustices. And the new album is no different, with Browne coming in both with specific targets like the struggles of Mexican immigrants into the States and more generalized notions of basic human longing (“Sometimes all anybody needs is the human touch” from “A Human Touch”) and searching in general (“If all I find is freedom, that’s all right,” he says on “Still Looking for Something”). https://www.youtube.com/embed/8_gWWzLph24?feature=oembed
Jackson Browne—he of the “No Nukes” activism and cited by none other than Randy Newman as the “only one who gives a shit” about the wrongs of the world—still puts human concerns at the fore. On the lovely “The Dreamer,” an immigrant family comes over the southern border, only to fall victim to deportation under Trump Administration rules. “Love is Love” comes from the viewpoint of a priest, Father Rick, negotiating the poverty-stricken streets of Haiti on his motorbike, “where people work and live and struggle every day.”
Matters of the heart are a concern, quite literally, on “My Cleveland Heart,” on which Browne describes replacing his beating heart with a mechanical one: “They don’t break, or bleed, or make mistakes like my heart makes.” It’s familiar emotional territory, if in a somewhat poppier package than the “Fountain of Sorrow” or “The Pretender” of yore.
The musical settings are varied here. There’s some fairly straightforward rock and roll with “Until Justice is Real,” on which Browne implores world citizens to steel themselves to do the good work they’re being called to do. There are the Latin flourishes of “The Dreamer” and the acoustic guitar and piano of “Minutes to Downtown” to the more electric Spanish flavor of “A Song for Barcelona,” Browne’s love song to that city, which he says “restored my fire and gave me back my appetite.” The album’s closer, “Barcelona” is Downhill From Everywhere’s best synthesis of the personal and the political, both laid out plainly in a musical setting in which it all goes down smoothly.
Browne wrote or cowrote all 10 tracks on Downhill From Everywhere, and also produced the album, his first since 2014’s Standing in the Breach. Many of the musicians on the new album are longtime collaborators—guitarists Greg Leisz and Val McCullum, bassist Bob Glaub and drummers Mauricio Lewak and Russ Kunkel. While former longtime guitarist and co-conspirator David Lindley is not present here, Leisz’s lap steelwork on several songs certainly brings back that vibe. Also helping shape the songs are a trio of female vocalists, Chavonne Stewart, Alethea Mills and Leslie Mendelson, the latter duetting with Browne on “A Human Touch.”
Now in his early 70s, Browne has expanded his worldview considerably from the early days, both literally and figuratively. And even if he shows no signs of letting up on his geopolitical and humanitarian concerns on Downhill From Everywhere, it’s also satisfying to know he’s still willing and able to lend an ear on affairs of the heart.
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Link to Article 10 New Albums to Stream TodayJackson Browne Releases New Album ‘Downhill From Everywhere’ [Listen]
July 27, 2021
Storied singer-songwriter Jackson Browne has released his latest album, Downhill From Everywhere, via Inside Recordings. In support of the new record, Browne will hit the road for a joint summer tour with James Taylor and a September run of “Evening With” shows.
The release of Downhill From Everywhere was preceded by album single “My Cleveland Heart“, which Browne performed last month of Jimmy Kimmel Live.
The songwriting on the album presents a heightened sense of urgency from the aging icon during an age when social, political, and environmental issues are reaching an inflection point. The songs feel like direct rallying cries to various pressing causes, like the shimmering “Love Is Love” and the stomping “Until Justice Is Real”.
“I see the writing on the wall,” Browne explains in a statement. “I know there’s only so much time left in my life. But I now have an amazing, beautiful grandson, and I feel more acutely than ever the responsibility to leave him a world that’s inhabitable.”
While the issues Browne tackles on the album are often sweeping and existential, he writes on a far more intimate scale, consistently zeroing in on the human experience at the heart of it all. “There’s a deep current of inclusion running through this record,” Browne explains. “I think that idea of inclusion, of opening yourself up to people who are different than you, that’s the fundamental basis for any kind of understanding in this world.
Downhill From Everywhere was recorded with a core band that included guitarists Greg Leisz (Eric Clapton, Bill Frisell, Bob Weir) and Val McCallum (Lucinda Williams, Sheryl Crow), bassist Bob Glaub (Linda Ronstadt, CSNY, John Fogerty), keyboardist Jeff Young (Sting, Shawn Colvin), drummer Mauricio Lewak (Sugarland, Melissa Etheridge), and longtime vocalists Chavonne Stewart and Alethea Mills, the record is a collaborative work driven by group chemistry and an openness to new sounds and ideas.
Stream Downhill From Everywhere by Jackson Browne on the platform of your choice here of listen via Spotify below.
Jackson Browne – Downhill From Everywhere – Full Album
https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/2QYXmpLyttMQahrUOxLwss
Browne will be busy on the road for the rest of the year in support of the new album. On July 29th, he’ll kick off an extensive tour with James Taylor that will keep him busy through the month of August. In September, Browne will shift gears for a run of “Evening With” performances before linking back up with Taylor for another leg of shows in October.
See below for a full list of upcoming Jackson Browne 2021 tour dates. For ticketing details and more information, head here.
Link to Article Jackson Browne Releases New Album ‘Downhill From Everywhere’ [Listen]