During his adolescent years in Montgomery, Ala., Jamey Johnson and his buddies would meet at the grave of county music patriarch Hank Williams. They’d pass whiskey and sing Williams touchstones, like “Jambalaya” and “I Saw the Light.”
Johnson’s family had more songbooks than records, and Jamey cut his teeth learning how to play songs by Williams, Willie Nelson, Alabama and Buddy Holly. The classicism stuck.
In the wasteland of glossy, neo-80s rock that passes for country these days, Johnson’s music is refreshingly grimy. “That Lonesome Road,” the 2008 record that garnered him three Grammy nominations, is sparse, dire and memorable.
“We didn’t use click tracks or a lot of gadgets available these days,” Johnson says of the sessions. “When we were mixing if we could barely hear somebody’s foot tapping or a chair cracking or any kind of sound happening in the room we would turn it up. We wanted you to feel like you were a fly on the wall of the studio.”
The album harkens back to bad-boy elite — Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Gram Parsons, Steve Earle — without Xeroxing them. On “High Cost of Living,” Johnson wraps his baritone around organ purr and feathery pedal steel. The tune’s lyrics recount smoking pot in church parking lots and passing out on bedroom floors. “Mowing Down the Roses” is divorce revenge set to Little Feat swagger, and “The Door is Always Open” channels Bakersfield boom.
Waiting in the wings of a Houston venue on Dec. 3, Johnson discovered he’d become a Grammy nominee. Fellow Nashville star Lee Ann Womack was onstage introducing him, and she included the just-announced nods in her spiel.
“Nobody had called to tell me,” Johnson says.
The melancholic tune “In Color” earned Johnson two Grammy nods. Sprinkled with gurgling Wurlitzer, the song examines between-the-lines memories. Johnson got the idea for the tune while sifting through old black-and-white photos belonging to singer/songwriter Bill Anderson.
“I was looking at the pictures and thinking of the stories behind them and I told (Johnson co-writer) Lee Miller, ‘You should have seen it in color.’ ”
Before Johnson became old country’s new hope, he paid his dues singing on songwriter demos. Having to belt out material to writers’ specifications would later influence Johnson’s laissez-faire approach in the studio.
“I sing a lot better when somebody gets out of my way and just lets me go,” Johnson says. “If that’s true for me then it’s true for the musicians who play on my sessions.”
Although he’s written hits for George Strait and Trace Atkins, being a songwriter wasn’t enough for Johnson, who issued his debut LP “The Dollar” in 2006. During his current tour, Johnson and his band play every song off “Lonesome Road,” set-time permitting.
A zest for touring has resulted in Johnson’s reputation as a thoroughbred carouser.
“Me and the guys enjoy being on the road,” Johnson says. “As far as anything wild, I don’t know, but it’s fun. We get to play our music for people everyday and when we get done, we want to hang out with them for a little while. I don’t think there’s anything crazy about that.”
