Jason Isbell headlines opening night of Moon River Festival in Coolidge Park

Danny Clinch Photo / Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit are Saturday night's headliners at Moon River Festival, closing out the day at 9:15 p.m. on the Poplar Stage.
Danny Clinch Photo / Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit are Saturday night's headliners at Moon River Festival, closing out the day at 9:15 p.m. on the Poplar Stage.

Life is clearly good for Jason Isbell. Since embracing sobriety six years ago, his career has seen an upward trajectory with a string of critically and commercially acclaimed albums that have won him Grammys and Americana Music awards.

Isbell's personal life has blossomed as well. He and Amanda Shires were married by fellow musician Todd Snider in February 2013, and the couple's daughter, Mercy Rose, was born in September 2015. Heck, the guy even gave up smoking awhile ago.

The Alabama native released "The Nashville Sound" in 2017, his sixth solo record that found him again working with producer Dave Cobb (Shooter Jennings/Sturgill Simpson). If his 2013 album, "Southeastern,"was about getting sober and 2015's "Something More Than Free"reflected Isbell's new clarity, who's to say "The Nashville Sound" wasn't about the path going forward? The singer-songwriter won't dispute that notion.

"I didn't come up with it, but I don't disagree with that," he said with a laugh in a phone interview.

"I stay away from that - what does this record mean and all that kind of stuff. That's not for the creator to come up with. What I try to do is make every individual song as tight and as correct as humanly possible. There are certain things that are going to come to the surface. There are going to be themes between the songs that the listener will probably be able to pick out because those are just things that my heart and life are in. These are things my mind focuses on."

Shires made her contributions known in harmonies and songwriting on "Anxiety," a composition that addresses the effects of mental illness. This rare co-writing situation was something Isbell felt necessary in order to capture the nuances of the malady, particularly how people suffering from it also have to grapple with other peoples' perceptions of what they're going through.

"I don't have a clinically diagnosed anxiety issue or these sort of crippling attacks where I can't function," Isbell said. "But I did want to cover that and represent that aspect of things in the song. I wanted to be specific and describe people's experiences when they have these sort of moments where they're disconnected from reality and things get overwhelming. So I went to her about that.

"As far as I'm concerned, stigma has done more damage to the human experience than just about anything else. For alcoholism, addiction or any kind of mental illness, it's such a terrible thing that you have to overcome first - that fear about people knowing something is wrong before you can fix it. To me, it seems there shouldn't be any shame in attempting to figure out what's wrong with you and get it sorted."

With culture wars at a seeming all-time high, Isbell is quick to dispel the idea that songs like "White Man's World" and "Hope the High Road" are simply political. For him, it's far more personal.

"There are things that people would call political about the album, but I don't think political is the right term. It's about your system of beliefs and I think a lot of people call that politics," he explained.

"To me, politics is trading favors. Politics is how we structure civilization. That's not what this record was about at all. Usually, that's not what people are talking about. People are talking about their freedom, equality and liberty. That's not politics-those are beliefs."

Isbell says he has invested in visual production to add some sizzle to his live shows.

"We've stepped the production up, spent some money on some lights and some really cool-looking stuff going on," he said. "It doesn't look like EDM or anything like that. It's still a rock show. You start selling a few thousand records and you have to stop looking like a bar band. We've taken that pretty seriously, so it's a pretty good complete experience now."

Isbell is set to perform on the Poplar Stage at 9:15 p.m. Saturday at the Moon River Festival in Coolidge Park.

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