A former Marine and construction worker, Jamey Johnson brings his country traditionalism to the House of Blues.
As the music business continues to struggle to find its footing in the wake of crashing record sales and the continued growth of the Internet as the main selling platform, country music has suffered through another era of pop domination.
Traditional country music has been pushed aside by music that sounds like top 40 with the occasional twang of a steel guitar to make it barely recognizable as country.
However, there is one performer out there who has inherited the mantle passed down from Willie, Merle and Waylon and that’s Jamey Johnson. The Alabama native with a ZZ Top-style beard was a member of the Marine Corps Reserves for eight years and ran his own construction company in Nashville while he tried to make it as a singer-songwriter.
He released his debut album in 2005, The Dollar, but he was better known as the songwriter who penned the Trace Adkins’ hit “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” and earned an Academy of Country Music Song of the Year Award in 2007 for co-writing the George Strait hit “Give It Away.”
Johnson found a home at Mercury Records and released the acclaimed album That Lonesome Song in 2008, including the song “In Color” which was named the Song of the Year by both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association.
He followed that up with the ambitious, 25-song double album The Guitar Song (2010) with the “Black Album” and the “White Album.” In an interview Johnson explains what he was going for: “The original idea was always to do a double album. It is an album that is a tale. The first part of it is a very dark and sordid story. And then everything after that is progressively more positive, reassuring and redemptive.”
Johnson is coming to the House of Blues in Atlantic City, Aug. 18, joined by his band, the Kent Hardly Playboys. He explains, “The road is where it’s at. I love it. That’s where you take country music. You don’t get the message out there by sitting at the house. I go out there and meet the people.”
In a recent teleconference, Johnson talked about his current show.
“I still have the passion for music. I still love to write, record and go on tour. What else am I going to do? I don’t want to retire. That’s no fun. If you have something to contribute, why not go out there and still give all that you got as opposed to just sitting in a chair and doing nothing?"
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