![]() This tri-state region was once notorious for the bootlegging and gambling operations of the State Line Mob, which clashed with folk hero Sheriff Buford Pusser of “Walking Tall” fame, and remains legendary for the “Muscle Shoals sound” that came out of its recording studios - regional mythologies that helped influence the early work of Isbell and his bandmates. Not surprisingly, Isbell hails from a borderland: the Shoals of Alabama, tucked between the Tennessee and Mississippi lines in the northwest corner of the state. The words roll slowly out of Isbell’s mouth as he talks, rounded with that heavy North Alabama accent - something between a soft plains drawl and a hard hilly twang. ![]() It’s obvious Isbell doesn’t hold anything against his actor neighbor - he’s just relating the surreal scenes where country life and stardom intersect. Stephen Dorff got a 400-pound pig, and every other day the pig gets in the middle of the road, and Stephen Dorff and his wife will be out there trying to get the pig and the pig won’t move.” The dog wouldn’t come to me, so I approached as near as I dared, took a couple of photos with my phone, and headed on, hoping someone at the farm would know who to call. ![]() I stopped in the road, put on my hazards, and got out. Few things would make me risk being late to talk to Jason Isbell, but a lost dog panting beneath the murderous July sun is one of them. ![]() Just minutes ago, I was rolling fast down country lanes, past sweeping green pastures and four-rail horse fencing, when I rounded a curve to find a giant, shaggy white creature standing in the middle of the blacktop. As happens so often in life, however, a real living story has cropped up to take precedence over merely talking about stories and art. I’m a novelist, after all, not a music critic or industry insider, and we’re living in a time when Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize in Literature for creating “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” - the first musician to receive the prize. I’ve come to town to talk to Isbell about songwriting as writing. ![]()
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