Jonathan Wilson – Dixie Blur
Bella Union – 6 March 2020
We can thank Steve Earle for Jonathan Wilson’s Dixie Blur. Originally a small-town North Carolinian, he appeared on NPR’s eTown with Earle who suggested, “The thing you should do is go down to Nashville.” Wilson’s last album, a primarily solo affair had taken nine months to record. He recalls, “I thought about that at the time, thought about it the next day and decided, ‘Damn, that’s a concept I definitely have not considered,’ Then I started to daydream about what that could be, kind of like the classic, session vibe. I started to get excited and decided to go for it.”
Enlisting the help of Wilco’s Pat Sansone to serve as co-producer, the album was recorded in six days at Cowboy Jack Clement’s Sound Emporium. Wilson even coaxed fiddler Mark O’Connor into doing his first session work since 1990! Along with Kenny Vaughn on guitar, bassist Dennis Crouch, Russ Pahl on pedal steel, woodwind, and harmonica player Jim Hoke, drummer Jon Radford, and Drew Erickson on keyboards, they recorded live in the studio. So Alive is a no overdubs meditation on love with Wilson singing over beautiful fiddle work, “That is why I’m so alive right now, you just keep on rolling, keep on blowing my mind.”
Reminiscing is also a part of the equation, looking back on his early days in North Carolina on 69 Corvette. With an uncle who played with Bill Monroe, and a dad who could “moonlight on banjo and mandolin and do gospel harmonies that would knock you out…” Wilson sings about what he remembers along with the current reality, “And daddy’s got tennis elbow from practicing violin. I see him slowing down, not an easy thing to swallow when it’s your old man.”
Looking forward and looking back sometimes go hand in hand. On Oh Girl Wilson and the band work off a plaintive piano as he reminisces about a former lover, singing “And missin’ someone is the kind of hurt someone should be grateful to feel.” In the midst of the sadness is a break that sounds for all the world like The Band, before coming back and building on the sadness with an incendiary guitar solo before ending with just Wilson and the piano.
The album ends with a reworking of Korean Tea, a song he recorded with his band Muscadine back in the 90s. Wilson claims it about “having a shining musical gift to share with the world.” Yet it’s also a song filled with sadness that the band mines to full effect, “I’m trying not to tap that emotion, the one where you feel alone.”
Jonathan Wilson has always been able to make music offering engagement with all emotions. What makes Dixie Blur so special is his ability to allow a team of crack musicians to come along for a ride on his emotional roller coaster. Together they have created an organic revelation that once again illustrates the immense talent that is Jonathan Wilson.
Jonathan Wilson European Tour Dates
Friday 27 March – Amsterdam – Het Zonnehuis
Saturday 28 March – Maastricht, NL – Muziekgieterij
Sunday 29 March – Paris, FR – Trabendo
Tuesday 31 March – Copenhagen, DE – Lille Vega
Wednesday 1 April – Oslo, NO – Centrum Scene
Thursday 2nd April – Stockholm, SE – Slaktkyrkan
Friday 3 April – Gothenberg, SE – Pustervik
Sunday 5 April – Berlin, DE – Silent Green
Monday 6 April – Brussels, BE – Botanique / Rotonde
Wednesday 8 April – London, UK – Lafayette
Photo Credit: Louis Rodiger