PROVIDENCE, R.I. — At the intersection of rock, country and Americana stands Jason Isbell, whose last album, "The Nashville Sound," embraced a bit of all three. (The title is a bit deceiving).
Isbell came to Veterans Memorial Auditorium on Friday night with his band, The 400 Unit, and although his record is very good, his live show is even better.
A fine guitarist and a clear, incisive songwriter who's not afraid to address issues head-on — listen to "White Man's World," for example — Isbell kept his powerful vocals high in the sound mix. This is a guy who wants to be heard.
Isbell played most of "The Nashville Sound," beginning with the open-hearted "Hope the High Road," which acknowledges a dark world but still hopes for better.
"White Man's World," on the other hand, is a blunt acknowledgement of privilege, with an ominous beat and a fiddle part snaking through the song: "I'm a white man living on a white man's street / I got the bones of the red man under my feet."
Isbell (usually) performs with his wife, the fiddler and singer Amanda Shires, as part of the band, and her fiddle works beautifully with the slide guitar parts played either by Isbell or guitarist Sadler Vaden.
One of the highlights of the show was a love song, "Cover Me Up," that Isbell sings to (and with) his wife, taking advantage of the obvious onstage chemistry between them.
Isbell and The 400 Unit knew how to change things up, whether rocking through songs such as "Flying Over Water," with Isbell tearing through solos on a Gibson Flying V guitar, or embracing a different vibe with the sweet country of "Tupelo."
"The Last of My Kind," about a country boy trapped a long way from his Arkansas home, started out with a country lilt and built to a powerful fiddle/guitar interchange at the finish.
Isbell & Company can have fun, too, as they did on the rollicking "Codeine," a song driven by Shires' fiddle and Derry deBorja's accordion.
I had to leave the show a bit early to make deadline and, trust me, I hated to leave.
Opening the show was James McMurtry, a fine songwriter with a literary bent. (His dad is the novelist Larry McMurtry.) Among the highlights was "Levelland," a wry look at an all-too-quiet Texas town, and the elegiac "No More Buffalo."
— asmith@providencejournal.com
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