Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne – Downhill From Everywhere

July 27, 2021

By Hal Horowitz, July 22, 2021

https://holler.country/reviews/album-review/jackson-browne-downhill-from-everywhere-album-review

Without looking at a recent photo of Jackson Browne, it’s easy to mistake this new album – the first in six years – for one recorded during his 70s/80s prime. Browne’s voice hasn’t aged a day since that era, and musically, this late-in-life entry to a stunning near five-decade catalog (his debut appeared in 1972) is as warm, lyrically articulate and musically compelling as any he has recorded.

Those who have followed Browne know he has been politically outspoken from his late 70s No Nukes days to the present. The trick has been to incorporate that socio-political stance into folk-rock songs which resonate musically as well. That has been a tougher balance for him to maintain. But on this, his 15th set of originals, he nails a successful middle ground.

Opener ‘Still Looking for Something’ sets the tone by its title alone. “Don’t know that I’ll find it… If all I find is freedom, it’s alright,” he sings with a knowing nod to both his advancing age and extensive career. Early single ‘My Cleveland Heart’ rocks out with a tempo similar to earlier work like ‘Boulevard’ or ‘For a Dancer’ as Greg Leisz’s lap steel fills the void left by David Lindley’s absence. Lyrics of “I’ve been walkin’ that broken line between/The way life is and the way it seems”, reexamine classic Browne territory, questioning his place in society as he did in The Pretender. And doing it with cowbell, reviving that much maligned 70s artefact for added punch.

Conceptually, Browne stays true to his activist heart in material that conveys messages without knocking the listener over the head with them. On ‘The Dreamer’, he revisits the Latin/Mexican rhythms he has often returned to with fluttering Spanish guitar lines and lyrics about an immigrant being sent back to Mexico, concluding, “And the walls that we’ve built between us /Keep us prisoners of our fear”, another common Browne theme.

‘Until Justice Is Real’ rocks with Leisz’s slide pushing the attack on a tune that asks us “What is democracy? What is the deal?”. The title track collects about a dozen current issues in its questioning of where the US is going by name checking the GOP, NRA, the US Senate, Columbine and others with soulful backing vocals echoing his yearning, still somewhat boyish yet weathered voice.

The exquisite ‘Human Touch’ finds singer Leslie Mendelson trading lead vocals with Browne, harmonizing for one of the collection’s most moving and heartfelt performances. Leisz’s lap steel provides weeping counterpoint as the duo sings “Everybody gets lonely…Reaching out for some connection…”. It’s one of Browne’s finest ballads, up there with ‘Call It a Loan’ or ‘In the Shape of a Heart.’ And that’s saying plenty.

The closing epic eight-minute ‘A Song for Barcelona’ that credits five co-writers along with Browne, returns to the frisky Latin lope, paying earnest tribute to “ …the streets that gave me refuge/In my escape from rock and roll” while accompanying himself on nylon string guitar.

As producer, Browne confidently controls the sound. He allows the sturdy band of veterans such as bassist Bob Glaub to gel with his expressive singing and lyrics on songs that feel fresher, more alive and socially relevant than you’d expect from any performer his age or younger.

It’s a stirring, even inspirational release and hopefully we won’t have to wait another six years for its follow-up.

8.5/10

Jackson Browne Confronts the Modern World on ‘Downhill From Everywhere’

July 27, 2021

Henry Carrigan POSTED ON JULY 22, 2021

https://www.nodepression.com/album-reviews/jackson-browne-confronts-the-modern-world-on-downhill-from-everywhere/

When he was 15, Jackson Browne wrote the lines “don’t confront me with my failures / I have not forgotten them” in for a song called “These Days,” which Nico recorded, and which he released later on his 1973 album, For Everyman. “These Days” illustrates Browne’s gift for capturing fear, uncertainty, and resilience and hope.

Browne recorded Downhill From Everywhere, his first album in six years, with his core band: guitarists Greg Leisz and Val McCallum, bassist Bob Glaub, keyboardist Jeff Young, and drummer Mauricio Lewak; other contributing musicians include drummer Russ Kunkel, guitarist Waddy Wachtel, Steve McEwan and Leslie Mendelson — who co-wrote “The Human Touch” with Browne — and background vocalists Chavonne Stewart, Alethea Mills, and DeAnte Duckett.

The album’s bouncy title track, reminiscent of “Running on Empty,” mimics the slipping, skidding, out-of-control slide into social chaos and natural catastrophe that’s the result of an emphasis on human freedom gone perversely wrong: In a world where politicians and preachers proclaim that everyone has rights, nobody does. It’s “downhill from the NRA / Downhill from ICE / And your huddled yearning masses yearning to be free,” Browne sings. He also effectively reminds us that since the oceans are downhill from landmasses, we’ve pushed our trash down those hills, and it’s now killing the oceans: “Do you think of the ocean as yours? / Because you need the ocean to breathe / Every second breath you take is coming from the sea / And we don’t really know, because we don’t really see / Do you think of the ocean as yours? / Do you think about it at all?”

In a light-filled, gorgeous canticle of hope, Browne and Eugene Rodriguez’s “The Dreamer” powerfully reveals the motivations for the darkness that covers our culture these days: “We don’t see half the people around us / But we imagine enemies who surround us / And the walls that we’ve built between us / Keep us prisoners of our fears.” Performed by Browne, Los Cenzontles and David Hidalgo, and sung in English and Spanish, the song opens with a cascading harp in a tune reminiscent of Browne’s “Linda Paloma.”

Ringing guitars frame Browne’s earnest hope that our lives will be filled with and peace, but he admits “It’s Still Too Soon to Say.” With each version of the song’s refrain, he grows more hopeful, though, and changes the final two lines of the refrain from “but whether everything will be alright” and “I’ve got to think it’s going to be alright” to “I want to think it’s going to be alright” in the third and final refrain. A tongue-in-cheek rocker, “Cleveland Heart,” nodding to the work of the Cleveland Clinic in pioneering artificial hearts, rides over screaming steel and propulsive drums, pondering the freedom of an artificial heart that “never breaks and never aches,” while the bright, jaunty “Still Looking for Something” conveys the singer’s hopeful restlessness: “though I’m hoping for something I can hold up to the light / Don’t know that I’ll find it, or the soulful smile behind it / If all I find is freedom, it’s alright.”

Downhill From Everywhere confirms Browne’s role as visionary troubadour, and he continues the plumb the depths of the human heart, looking into its dark corners and bright chambers.

After the Deluge: An Unofficial Jackson Browne Podcast

July 27, 2021

A deep dive through the entire Jackson Browne discography starting with his first five albums, which I believe represent one of the best five-album runs by any artist ever. Each episode is built upon an interview with a different musician or writer close to Jackson Browne’s music. Follow host, Justin Cox, at https://twitter.com/routinelayup

This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts.

https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/jacksonbrowne?selected=PAN4965167661

Jackson Browne on PBS News Hour

July 26, 2021

“It’s been 50 years since Jackson Browne recorded “Doctor My Eyes,” his first hit in which the world’s troubles have caused the singer’s tear ducts to run dry. Fifteen albums and eight Grammy nominations later, he’s now out with his first new album in seven years. NewsHour Weekend’s Tom Casciato talked with Browne in Los Angeles about his new work, and the themes and subjects he’s returned to often in his songs.”

Watch the full piece on PBS now.

Jackson Browne Announces “Evening With” tour dates for September

June 21, 2021

Jackson Browne announces an “Evening With” tour this September with his full band. The run of shows support his new album Downhill From Everywhere, available worldwide on July 23.

The Lyte Pre-registration begins Wednesday, June 23 at 10 AM local time. Click here to pre-register.

The JacksonBrowne.com presales begin Thursday, June 24 at 10 AM local time.

For more information, see the tour chart here.