This winter I spoke with Isbell, by phone from his home in Nashville, about the creative choices behind this solo venture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
First of all, why a solo acoustic album now? What pointed you in that direction? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, in some ways, just because I haven\u2019t done it before. I\u2019m all for giving myself creative constraints that make for a different sort of album and a different sort of challenge. I feel like after I had produced myself and my band on Weathervanes,<\/em> I\u2019d hit all the goals that I had for myself. I made a record that didn\u2019t allow my insecurities as a producer, or my ego, to affect the nature of the songs and how they wanted to be recorded and delivered. Once that was done, it seemed appealing to me to go further into the songs themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it\u2019s really easy, after you\u2019ve been doing this kind of job for a couple decades, to start writing the imitation of yourself, you know? I didn\u2019t want to do that. I wanted to do something that was exposed and difficult. I thought, well, if I just take one guitar and sit down and make a record full of new songs with just me, then there\u2019s nowhere to hide. If the songs aren\u2019t good, if they don\u2019t do what I want them to do, it\u2019s going to be really obvious to me before it is to anybody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you wrote those songs, did you have in mind that you were going to record them that way? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I did. For me, anyway, one of the things I\u2019ve learned works best is to ignore most considerations when I\u2019m writing the song. I try not to write and edit the song at the same time, but there is a default setting I go into where I\u2019ll think, how would this sound with a full band? [With these songs] I didn\u2019t want there to be something missing. I didn\u2019t want it to seem like I had written a song that was supposed to be a rock song, or was supposed to be big and produced, and then I reduced it to a solo acoustic thing. So I had to flip that switch from the start and think: the melodies, the lyrics, the chord changes, that\u2019s all I really have to work with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I really enjoyed the challenge of just playing one simple guitar. I had the chipboard case and I walked into the studio in the Village, sat down and started singing and playing, and five days later, a record was done. Something about that felt significant to me as a folksinger at heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These tracks have a similar feel to the solo demos that were released with the Southeastern<\/em> tenth anniversary edition.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Right. Well, Southeastern<\/a><\/em> is well produced. Dave Cobb did a good job. I think the hallmark of good production when you\u2019re dealing with this particular type of music is when your demos don\u2019t sound all that different from your finished product. If I were making a pop record, they should sound very different, because that\u2019s a producer-driven medium, but the kind of music that I make is a songwriter-driven medium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On \u201cBury Me,\u201d your chord-melody flatpicking style reminds me of Norman Blake. Does the song connect with memories of learning that kind of music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Definitely. That is still my default when I pick up an acoustic guitar, and it\u2019s certainly because that\u2019s how I started out. Also, as a kid, when I wasn\u2019t with my grandfather or uncle or another member of my family, I was usually playing by myself, so there had to be some combination of entertaining and backing myself up, so to speak. There had to be a melody line and a rhythmic pattern going at the same time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not a skilled fingerpicker, and I\u2019m also not a skilled flatpicker. So there\u2019s a hybrid thing that happens in between that I think is a lot more similar to Norman Blake than it would be to Tony Rice or Leo Kottke or somebody who has mastered one of those two different disciplines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does that mean that you literally use pick-and-fingers or hybrid style? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. I think \u201cBury Me\u201d is flatpicking, but most of the time I combine the two, so I\u2019ll use the flatpick and then my middle and ring fingers. That style of picking gives you a lot of space, especially if you\u2019re playing an appropriate instrument, something that\u2019s not going to overpower the vocal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In many of your past songs, too, the guitar parts have a lot of melody\u2014on \u201cIf We Were Vampires,\u201d for instance, you pick the melody throughout. When you\u2019re writing, do you tend to find melodies on guitar and then sing them, or does it work the other way around, where you find a vocal melody and then figure out how to play it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It started out more with the former. When I first started writing songs, I\u2019d already been playing the guitar for quite a few years. The guitar players I liked when I was a kid were all classic rock, blues-influenced players, and also I spent a lot of time going back and finding their influences. So I was listening to Albert King, B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy Page, and I fell in love with David Lindley\u2019s lap steel playing when I was a teenager. And they all played these singable melodies. You know, everybody can sing the outro solo to \u201cStairway to Heaven,\u201d and also [the solos] on \u201cHotel California\u201d and \u201cRunning on Empty.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n So when I started writing songs and lyrics, to figure out how to get to a vocal melody that stuck in my head, I would play until I came up with something melodic on the guitar that felt composed to me, and then I would start singing words over it. [The process] went that way for quite a few years. Now I\u2019ve done it so many times that it\u2019s more of a thing that happens in my head, with words connected to it at the same time. Then I\u2019ll find the accompaniment for that on the guitar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you start with something you hear and then figure it out on the guitar, do you try different capo or chord positions to see what gives you the best access to the melody? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, I do. Finding open strings, different partials, different fingerings, different ways to approach pickup notes and dotted notes, and how to get the most concise but still musical version of that melody out is really important. When you\u2019re singing a melody, especially if it\u2019s a chorus, it needs to be pared down to pretty basic elements for it to stick. This is just my own personal unwritten rule. But when you translate that to the guitar, you have a little room to play with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your new song \u201cRide to Robert\u2019s\u201d sounds like double-dropped-D tuning. Is that right? Do you use alternate tunings much? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t a whole lot, but yeah, that one is in DADGAD actually, and then I capoed it. That one\u2019s definitely in the Richard Thompson tradition. Part of the challenge on that was making it sound like I wasn\u2019t covering \u201c\u201952 Vincent.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since you have a lot of blues in your background, do you get into common open tunings like open D and open G?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, definitely, and I still enjoy that. I\u2019ll sit around and play in those tunings for fun. Sometimes I\u2019ll write in sort of a modified Keith Richards tuning where I\u2019ll drop the A string down to G and the [low] E to D, so I\u2019ve got D G D G B E. And I like that tuning a whole lot, because you can do some really bluesy stuff, and then on the top four strings, you can solo like you would in standard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If I\u2019m playing slide, it\u2019s real hard for me to play solo, unaccompanied slide guitar without playing the blues. As influenced as I am by the blues, I don\u2019t feel qualified to make that type of music, so I kept the slide on the stand for this record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you look at acoustic and electric guitar as completely separate instruments? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think so. My favorite acoustic guitar players, without a doubt, approach it as a different beast. When I hear Dave Rawlings play, I think, this man is not playing the guitar, he\u2019s playing the acoustic guitar. I know he would say\u2014because I\u2019ve talked to him about this\u2014that he\u2019s just playing notes. He\u2019s not even really considering what instrument he\u2019s playing. But he\u2019s approaching the instrument in a way that sounds to me like it\u2019s specifically for the acoustic guitar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I went and tried what I do on a Les Paul on a dreadnought Martin, it just would not work. When you get into playing rhythm, those lines blur a whole lot, but if you\u2019re doing anything single-note or lead guitar style, you\u2019re going to have to approach them differently. There are players who are very talented at making an acoustic guitar sound like an electric guitar, but I don\u2019t know why they do that. That doesn\u2019t seem like fun to me. I think if you want to play the electric guitar, just get an electric guitar and turn it up real loud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The acoustic takes a different type of touch, too.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, it does. It takes some muscle to play the acoustic guitar. I mean, Jerry Garcia played the electric guitar a lot like he would play an acoustic, without a whole lot of vibrato, and rambling in sort of a Dixieland bluegrass kind of way. That defined his style of playing. But [electric guitar] is something that has to be approached differently for most of us mortals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ve described your songs as a mix of autobiography and character-based stories. From a writing point of view, do you look at those modes differently?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I try really hard not to. It is tempting to reveal less in an autobiographical song than you would in a character-driven song. It\u2019s terrifying to reveal much of anything in an autobiographical song, especially if you\u2019re going through some significant changes in your life, like I have been over the past year. But I hold my feet to the fire, because that\u2019s the job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The last song on this record, \u201cWind Behind the Rain,\u201d has nothing to do with me, as far as the story goes. My little brother was getting married, and his fianc\u00e9e asked me if I would write a song for their first dance for their wedding. So that song was completely written about the two of them. On a psychological or artistic level, it\u2019s so much easier to write a song like that than to write something that\u2019s super personal, because you don\u2019t have that nag in the back of your mind saying, \u201cOh, you\u2019re giving away too much.\u201d You have to fight that. I think you have to lean into the side of you that\u2019s afraid, because that\u2019s how you get the best art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All the songs on the album feel personal on some level, but \u201cTrue Believer\u201d hits particularly hard.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, that\u2019s a tough one. That\u2019s a tough song to write, tough song to sing, but it\u2019s real. I think I did a good job of expressing and recording how I feel, while at the same time working through those feelings in a way that eliminates bitterness or the need to be maudlin or self-referential. I don\u2019t know that anybody would agree with me on this, but I feel like the rules for writing a good song translate really well to just living a good life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember in the Tom T. Hall book about how to write songs [The Songwriter\u2019s Handbook<\/a><\/em>], he talks about how to be angry without being bitter. I mean, I\u2019ve gotten a lot out of anger\u2014it has served me well\u2014but bitterness has never really helped anybody. I feel like you can hear that in a song, just like you can see that in a person. So sometimes, when I\u2019m writing my way through my emotional life, like I did with \u201cTrue Believer,\u201d in the process of eliminating things that don\u2019t help you write a better song, you also eliminate things that don\u2019t help you live a better life. Hence the therapeutic abilities of art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your songs often have a central image\u2014on this album, for instance, there\u2019s \u201cGravelweed,\u201d and another that comes to mind is \u201cCast Iron Skillet.\u201d When you\u2019re writing, do you look for a physical detail that\u2019ll ground the song?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever thought about that in that way before, so that\u2019s a good question. \u201cSkillet\u201d started, I think, with that image. I don\u2019t usually start that way, but sometimes I\u2019ll get there naturally just by trying to put the listener in the room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are definitely times when I get halfway through a song and think, I need some images. I need some pictures that people can see and latch onto, sort of anchors for where I\u2019m trying to take folks. And then I\u2019ll go looking for a good one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you picture a song unfolding in a particular location?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe one, maybe multiple, but I\u2019m always somewhere. I think it\u2019s important to be somewhere very specific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With \u201cOpen and Close\u201d [which begins, \u201cThe fireplace isn\u2019t real\/ It\u2019s some sort of LED light and mirror\u201d], I remember sitting in a dressing room, looking at the fireplace, and thinking, oh, that\u2019s not real. That\u2019s how I started writing that song. By the end of the song, I\u2019ve moved not only through space but through time, because I\u2019m in a completely different place many days later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Really, what I\u2019m trying to do is move somebody, in a literal sense: put them in the room that I want them to be in. That\u2019s the thing that I love about my favorite records. Go back and listen to Exile on Main Street,<\/em> and you feel like you\u2019re in a different place, in a different time, and even in a different physical condition. I think songs can do that without being very songwriterly, without being clever, sometimes without even really being melodic per se. You can relocate somebody in a lot of different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you look at the songs on this album as related to each other, or moving your songwriting in a particular direction?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I certainly see them as conceptually linked. I\u2019m trying to document a point of change in my life, and naturally the songs are all going to be interconnected in that way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That being said, as far as the direction of my songwriting goes, I don\u2019t think much about that. I\u2019m just refining the process over time, trying to get to a point where the rules are so second nature to me that I can ignore them. It\u2019s kind of like Jackson Pollock before he started splattering paint everywhere. He could do a photographic picture; he could paint and draw something that looked very real. I feel like he got to the point where he could just ignore those rules completely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So I\u2019m trying to do that. I\u2019m trying to follow the rules that I\u2019ve made for myself: avoiding clich\u00e9s and going for something other than the most obvious choices for rhymes, trying to make lyrics sound more natural, while the whole time trying to reveal more of myself than I\u2019m comfortable with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I want to refine the process to the point to where I can let go of the process itself and sort of eliminate the song\u2014which is an impossible goal. I don\u2019t want somebody to realize that they\u2019re listening to a song when they\u2019re hearing one of my songs; I would like for them to just be experiencing whatever story I was experiencing when I wrote it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jason Isbell recorded Foxes in the Snow <\/em>with a 1940 Martin 0-17<\/a>. His stage acoustics are vintage-inspired contemporary Martins: two OM-28 Modern Deluxes and a Custom Shop 000-18 1937. These guitars have Fishman pickups run through the Fishman Aura system, with digital images created from the guitars\u2019 acoustic sound. Isbell uses Martin Marquis phosphor bronze light strings (.012\u2013.054), Dunlop Tortex 1.14mm picks, and McKinney-Elliott capos. \u2014JPR\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For recording his first-ever solo acoustic album, Jason Isbell enlisted his trusted studio collaborator Gena Johnson, a Nashville-based engineer and producer who\u2019s worked on all of his albums since The Nashville Sound<\/a><\/em> (2017). On Foxes in the Snow<\/em>, Johnson not only engineered and mixed but served as co-producer\u2014helping guide the choices of songs and takes and even arrangement details such as keys and tunings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWorking with him so much, I\u2019ve really gotten to know him and his heart, so you just get good at reading things in the studio,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cI think that comes across in the recordings, the comfortability and openness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the album sessions at Electric Lady Studios, she says, \u201cI really wanted it to feel like you\u2019re in the room with him. To be able to do that, I wanted to use the actual room.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n For that up-close-and-personal sound, Johnson wound up using seven microphones: two vocal mics (Telefunken ELA M 251 and Neumann M 249); three guitar mics (Neumann U67 on the body, Sony C-37a and Neumann KM86 on the neck); and two room mics (Cascade Fat Head ribbon mics about 12\u201315 feet away). \u201cThe blend between those mics felt perfect to me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Isbell recorded all full takes of the songs\u2014no overdubs. Even with guitar and vocal together and no click track, they were able to do some judicious comping. \u201cHe\u2019s so consistent a player and singer that it was not difficult to use little parts and pieces if needed\u2014fitting in those special little moments from different takes and making sure it feels like one take, of course,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Making the album was \u201ca very beautiful, collaborative, trusting process,\u201d she adds. \u201cI just was having grace and respect for him the whole time of like, how can I support him in doing this? Because, man, it\u2019s vulnerable and intimate\u2014the two biggest things about this record.\u201d \u2014JPR<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This article originally appeared in the May\/June 2025<\/a> issue of Acoustic Guitar<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Isbell sheds light on the creative choices behind his new solo album, a stunning close-up portrait that shows why he’s one of today\u2019s most revered singer-songwriters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":147373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Isbell sheds light on the creative choices behind his new solo album, a stunning close-up portrait that shows why he's one of today\u2019s most revered singer-songwriters.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1155],"tags":[1965],"ppma_author":[1559],"class_list":["post-147370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guitar-talk","tag-may-june-2025"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Jason-Isbell30058-photo-Robert-Rausch.jpg?fit=1200%2C949&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":1559,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"jeffrey-pepper-rodgers","display_name":"Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/About-Us-8.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/About-Us-8.jpg"},"author_category":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.jeffreypepperrodgers.com\/","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":"Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, founding editor of Acoustic Guitar<\/em>, is a grand prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and author of The Complete Singer-Songwriter<\/em><\/a>, Beyond Strumming<\/em><\/a>, and other books and videos for musicians. In addition to his ongoing work with AG<\/em>, he offers live workshops for guitarists and songwriters, plus video lessons, song charts, and tab, on Patreon<\/a>.\r\n"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147370"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147647,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147370\/revisions\/147647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147370"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=147370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Jason-Isbell-Foxes-in-the-Snow-cover.jpg?resize=1024%2C1024&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Jason-Isbell-studio-credit-Will-Welch\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Jason-Isbell-studio-credit-Will-Welch.jpg?resize=1024%2C684&ssl=1\")
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What He Plays<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nCapturing \u2018Foxes in the Snow\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Jason-Isbell-Gena-Johnson-credit-Will-Welch\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Jason-Isbell-Gena-Johnson-credit-Will-Welch.jpg?resize=1024%2C817&ssl=1\")
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