{"id":8223,"date":"2026-01-21T12:16:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T12:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/jackson-browne-album-by-album-23311\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T12:16:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T12:16:55","slug":"jackson-browne-album-by-album-23311","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/jackson-browne-album-by-album-23311\/","title":{"rendered":"Jackson Browne: \u201cI was given the freedom to try just about anything\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

Originally published in Uncut Take 159 (August 2010), the beloved singer-songwriter takes us through the creation of his greatest albums<\/em><\/strong>…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Originally published in Uncut Take 159 (August 2010), the beloved singer-songwriter takes us through the creation of his greatest albums<\/em><\/strong>\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cMusic has an impact because a lot of people experience it at the same time, and that can\u2019t happen exactly the same way again,\u201d says Jackson Browne, whose five \u201970s LPs are the quintessence of the SoCal singer\/songwriter genre. \u201cBut people want to hear that artist do that thing over and over. It\u2019s great when an artist can continually grow, and the audience accepts that.\u201d Over the past decade, he\u2019s put out a pair of LPs with his band, some solo acoustic runs through his fat song-book and the recent Love Is Strange, with longtime collaborator David Lindley.<\/p>\n

JACKSON BROWNE<\/strong>
JACKSON BROWNE<\/strong>
(Asylum, 1972)
Already an oft-covered writer at 23, Browne signed with David Geffen\u2019s new Asylum label and cut his debut album with some of SoCal\u2019s finest, anchored by James Taylor\u2019s rhythm section: drummer Russ Kunkel and bassist Lee Sklar\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

BROWNE: \u201cTo me, it\u2019s always the same thing; it\u2019s making a bunch of songs and how you get the songs finished. I want to play with people that make the song sound good and make the ideas come out \u2013 or give me better ideas. Making that first LP was painstaking because I was feeling my way. I\u2019d never played with a band; I\u2019d always played acoustic by myself. I didn\u2019t want to be hooked up with a prominent producer, who might supplant whatever ideas I came up with. So I chose to go with this engineer Richard Orshoff, who\u2019d done a James Taylor album with Peter Asher at Crystal Sound. I\u2019d planned to use David Lindley, but he was in England. Then I lucked into an amazing band. Sure, they were James\u2019 rhythm section, but also, there was a way in which Peter Asher worked that I emulated \u2013 I became a stowaway in his productions. The prevailing method in Hollywood and New York was to make albums in a few days. My approach was simply getting these guys together to figure out what worked. They called them \u2018head arrangements\u2019. They\u2019d get in a room and make stuff up, just like The Beatles did. We were just trying to get the most out of a song. That record was one of the first where artists were left to their own devices and allowed to work the way they wanted to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

JACKSON BROWNE<\/strong>
FOR EVERYMAN<\/strong>
(Asylum, 1973)
With Lindley, David Crosby, Elton John and Joni Mitchell joining the sessions, Browne\u2019s second LP produces classics like \u201cTake It Easy\u201d and the title song\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGoing on tour with David Lindley was a very formative experience for me. I got to spend practically a year playing these songs with the one other musician I\u2019d forged a lifelong musical chemistry with. It helps to have a genius multi-instrumentalist in your back pocket when you step out there, and it helps give dimension to the songs. With that musical collaboration in place, it wasn\u2019t hard to add bass and drums to those arrangements, which is what I did. The album took about nine months to make, and I\u2019m lucky that I was given the freedom to try just about anything, because a lot of stuff I tried didn\u2019t work. We were working at Sunset Sound, and the album was recorded by a great engineer, John Haeny. He was one of my important teachers, because he taught me a lot about editing tracks. I really think that I\u2019m more of an editor than anything else, including when I\u2019m writing. During a break in the middle of recording the first album, I took a road trip in this old beat-up Willys Jeep and I went to Utah and Arizona. On that trip I started to write \u2018Take It Easy\u2019, and when I came back, I played it for Glenn Frey, and he asked if the Eagles could cut it when it was done. So I said, \u2018Just finish it\u2019, and he wrote the last verse and turned it into a real song. It was their first single, and what those guys did with it was incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

JACKSON BROWNE<\/strong>
LATE FOR THE SKY<\/strong>
(Asylum, 1974)
A split with his wife drove Browne to write these songs, resulting in one of the deepest, most powerful break-up albums ever\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cFor Late For The Sky, I had the songs pretty much written. It was the first time I\u2019d sat down and written songs with the information of how I was going to record them. I went to Asylum and got $10,000 to rehearse the band for a month before we went in the studio. I liked the bands that worked that way, like Creedence and the Eagles, and I was aware of the fact that the stuff I really loved was a product of them playing together for a while. I just wanted the record to be like a band, and there were only the five people playing on the record. We rehearsed everything in a room in my house \u2013 the house I grew up in, which my grandfather had built. This room we were working in had stained glass windows, a pipe organ and a choir loft, high ceilings. It was a little like being in a church. It might have been one reason the songs sound kind of church-y. But Lindley was the key. What he played was incredible, and it was what we arrived at after playing together for a couple months and really knew the songs. It always proceeded from the way we played together \u2013 what he felt when I sang, and how that came out on the violin, or whatever he was playing. When Lindley wasn\u2019t playing electric guitar, he\u2019d be playing acoustic guitar, or if he wasn\u2019t playing lap, he\u2019d be playing fiddle. And I was either playing piano and Jai [Winding] was playing organ. Or if I was playing acoustic guitar, then he would play piano. That sound of the piano and the organ together was especially important. I thought it was a great thing between us, because the way I play piano is like a lot of whole chords. And combined with Jai\u2019s organ, it kind of gave the songs a particular kind of sound, very major-y. I\u2019d bought my own piano, so I really had a great piano for the first time during that time. One of the first songs I wrote on it was \u2018For A Dancer\u2019. With \u2018Late For The Sky\u2019, I had this one phrase, \u2018late for the sky\u2019, and I wrote that whole song in order to say that one phrase at the end of it. People have always referred to those songs as \u2018Late For The Sky kind of songs\u2019, and I think they\u2019re referring to the subject of songs like \u2018Late For The Sky\u2019, \u2018For A Dancer\u2019 and \u2018The Late Show\u2019, but I don\u2019t have any name for that kind of song. It has to do with our expectations and battling your loss of innocence. You resolve your expectations with your resignation and mortality, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

JACKSON BROWNE<\/strong>
THE PRETENDER<\/strong>
(Asylum, 1975)
Ceding control for the first time to an outside producer (Jon Landau, Springsteen\u2019s manager), Browne altered his freewheeling approach to recording. Crosby (again), Nash, Lowell George and Don Henley guest\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cUp through Late For The Sky, I was still recording by simply playing with David until it coalesced, but that record was the culmination of that way of working. With The Pretender, I started working with Jon Landau, and what he set about doing was to change that. Not because he didn\u2019t like the result, but he saw that there was something that we weren\u2019t doing that we could be doing, and he made it more difficult to resort to my old habits. We had to discuss everything. He changed my priorities. He was really hands-on, and he got me involved in arranging and making clear-cut decisions; I\u2019d just have kept playing the song and things would develop. In the middle of recording \u2018The Pretender\u2019, Jon was working with Jeff Porcaro [drums] and Craig Doerge [piano] and getting a certain dramatic thing to happen. Landau said, \u2018Do you like that?\u2019 And I said, \u2018I like it, but I\u2019d have to write some more words.\u2019 And he looked at me and smiled and said, \u2018Well, you\u2019re a writer. Go write some more words.\u2019 In \u2018The Pretender\u2019, there\u2019s the line, \u2018Were they only the fitful dreams of some greater awakening?\u2019 It\u2019s really talking about the same thing that \u2018For Everyman\u2019 was talking about, and it comes back and around again in a number of ways in my songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

WARREN ZEVON<\/strong>
WARREN ZEVON<\/strong>
(Asylum, 1976)
Browne met Zevon in LA in 1968. He was later instrumental in Asylum signing Zevon and handled production duties on his breakthrough.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I\u2019d made a bunch of records, I wanted to help Warren get his first album made. But I\u2019m not the kind of producer that is really ambitious. The last thing on my mind was how to make a hit record; I just thought people needed to hear him. So we\u2019d make the best versions of his songs we could. Geffen had the feeling I was just making a record for a friend \u2013 doing somebody a favour. It wasn\u2019t until after the LP was done that he really heard it for what it was, especially when the critics hailed it. Warren had \u2018Excitable Boy\u2019 and \u2018Werewolves Of London\u2019 written, but I thought he should save them for his second LP because, if he didn\u2019t record \u2018Frank And Jesse James\u2019, \u2018Desperados Under The Eves\u2019 and \u2018The French Inhaler\u2019 on the first album, they weren\u2019t gonna get recorded later. I used to play \u2018Werewolves Of London\u2019 live, and the record company would say, \u2018You\u2019re gonna cut that song, right?\u2019 And when I told them it was for Zevon\u2019s second record, they thought I was crazy, because they believed I could have a hit with it myself. But that was wrong, and you can see it now. I didn\u2019t think anybody got Warren but me. That\u2019s the kind of writer he was \u2013 he spoke to your inner cynic. There was a dialogue that went on inside of him that\u2019s going on inside of everybody. I\u2019m still a huge fan of his writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

JACKSON BROWNE<\/strong>
RUNNING ON EMPTY<\/strong>
(Asylum, 1977)
A live LP containing all new material, recorded onstage, in various motel rooms and \u201con a bus somewhere in New Jersey\u201d. Still Browne\u2019s best-selling album\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought making a live record would be something to do while I tried to come up with another LP of songs like The Pretender. That\u2019s what happens when you get recognition. You go, \u2018OK, great, let\u2019s try to do something more like that.\u2019 But that\u2019s not what you were doing when you did it in the first place. You were just doing what you wanted to do next. And Running On Empty became my most successful record. For the first time I was getting paid enough to take this band who\u2019d been on my albums [Russ Kunkel, Lee Sklar, Craig Doerge and guitarist Danny Kortchmar] on tour. They were huge fans of David Lindley, and they\u2019d been on recording dates with him, so they were the most accommodating of bands with what David and I already had going on. My favourite thing was recording in motel rooms\u2026 we actually sang in the shower. That album was about a shared common experience that we all had touring, that we all knew pretty well. Most of those ideas came from us touring with different people. Stagehands to this day come up and say, \u2018\u201dThe Load-Out\u201d is our anthem.\u2019<\/p>\n

JACKSON BROWNE<\/strong>
LIVES IN THE BALANCE<\/strong>
(Asylum, 1986)
Browne became politically active in the \u201980s \u2013 he helped found Musicians United For Safe Energy after the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster. Lives\u2026 was a response to the Reagan administration\u2019s activities in Central America\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIn my songs, the subjects pick me; and I try to represent them. Lives In The Balance was a turning point, when I began to talk about what I\u2019d been reading and thinking about. Everybody accepted the status quo version of America that was ludicrous. Lives In The Balance was an attempt to write clearly on subjects that you shouldn\u2019t be oblique about. My favourite album of the day was Little Steven\u2019s Voice Of America, and if I was emulating anyone, it was his outspokenness. But when people attribute a decline in my sales and stature to these political songs, I disagree. The record company didn\u2019t like the record or know what to do with it. But I never took it as meaning you shouldn\u2019t sing about politics. The past 20 or 30 years bears me out. Yes, my intention was confrontational, but the record also contained \u2018In The Shape Of A Heart\u2019, and if your politics are as personal as anything else, you\u2019ve got to talk about them. So, in that sense, the political songs and \u2018In The Shape Of A Heart\u2019 were compatible.\u201d<\/p>\n

JACKSON BROWNE<\/strong>
LOOKING EAST <\/strong>
(Elektra, 1996)
On 1993\u2019s I\u2019m Alive, Browne assembled the band he still records with today; this subsequent album found them gaining their footing as a unit\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a band, just like the one on Late For The Sky. We had Luis Conte doing live percussion, and Waddy [Wachtel] got added to \u2018Looking East\u2019 \u2013 he made the song, just playing rhythm guitar and rockin\u2019 the track. \u2018Looking East\u2019 is fantastic, but I don\u2019t think people even heard the song because of the track. The song becomes much more audible when it\u2019s sung in this acoustic way in which the writing is in high relief. My favourite version is the one on [2010 live album] Love Is Strange with Lindley playing on it. Even the guys in my band say this new one is their favourite. Although they made a great version, something about the bombast of the track gets in the way of hearing what the song is saying. That\u2019s what keeps happening; I guess I\u2019m not making the right record the first time out. When the song first gets recorded, it\u2019s almost like the last instalment in writing the song. But there\u2019s still something that happens beyond that. What it\u2019s shown me is that, even though you make a record, that doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s the only way of playing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

JACKSON BROWNE<\/strong>
THE NAKED RIDE HOME<\/strong>
(Elektra, 2002)
Follow-up to Looking East, with Browne\u2019s most vivid batch of songs since Late For The Sky\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHow records get made is the most fascinating thing to me. I love \u2018The Naked Ride Home\u2019 as a recording. [Band guitarist] Mark Goldenberg was playing structurally on the original session, and I was gonna overdub him doing a lead on top, but I wound up adding this great guitarist Val McCallum to the band just to play that part. He played this incredible part on the first take. It\u2019s a deceiving song; it plays a trick on the listener because \u2018Just take off your clothes and I\u2019ll drive you home\u2019 sounds like a pick-up line. You don\u2019t find out until the end that these are married people. The assumption is there that it\u2019s about one thing when it\u2019s really about another. I love language so much in that way. I\u2019m a songwriter, so that\u2019s what people focus on \u2013 the songs. But how I get there is by playing in a band. On the last few records, I\u2019ve begun finishing songs with the band. We just keep playing and when something great happens, everybody knows it. We\u2019re not trying to play perfectly; we\u2019re trying to find something that no one even knows what it is. So I now feel like I\u2019m the singer and lyricist in a band.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post Jackson Browne: \u201cI was given the freedom to try just about anything\u201d<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published in Uncut Take 159 (August 2010), the beloved singer-songwriter takes us through the creation of his greatest albums… Originally published in Uncut Take 159 (August 2010), the beloved…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,35,5151],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-interviews","category-jackson-browne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}