Hear Two Previously Unreleased Jason Isbell Songs
After leaving the Drive-By Truckers in 2007, Americana singer-songwriter Jason Isbell went on to huge success as a solo artist. He broke through in a big way with 2013’s Southeastern, his first album since getting sober and marrying violinist Amanda Shires, and since then, he’s won four Grammys, become the youngest Artist-In-Residence at the Country Music Hall Of Fame, and earned a prestigious Album Of The Week nod from Stereogum for last year’s The Nashville Sound, his latest album with the 400 Unit as his backing band.
And now, with all of that success behind him, Isbell has decided to revisit some of his early work. In 2007, he released his debut solo album Sirens Of The Ditch, co-produced by Isbell himself and Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood and featuring veteran session players from Muscle Shoals’ legendary FAME Studios. And next month, as NPR reports, the Nashville label New West is reissuing a deluxe edition of the LP featuring four previously unreleased tracks: “Racetrack Romeo,” “Crystal Clear,” “The Assassin,” and “Whisper.”
Today, Isbell has shared studio recordings of those last two songs, “The Assassin” and “Whisper.” The former, which Isbell often plays live, is a song written by Hood for his 2004 solo debut Killers And Stars. The latter, meanwhile, is a stirring Southern-rock ballad written by Isbell himself. You can hear both songs below.
Sirens Of The Ditch (Deluxe Edition) is out 7/13 via New West.