Dress Blues

"Queen had a picture of a bunch of naked girls on bicycles on the inside sleeve, so I liked that a whole lot," he confesses. "They finally had to take the liner notes away and burn 'em. I would just sit and stare at it all the time. I wouldn't do anything else. They let me keep the record, though."

Isbell says his dad's love of '70s arena rock and classic country is chiefly responsible for the tenor of his songs. Although his folks weren't particularly musical, just about everyone else in the family was. Soon Isbell was spending all his time playing guitar, which proved to be a good distraction when his folks split up just as he was becoming a teenager.

"[The divorce] definitely made me focus a whole lot more on playing guitar and listening to rock and roll records," he says. "That's for sure. I spent a great deal of time in those days sitting in my room playing guitar, ten or 12 hours a day every day for years."

By age 15, Isbell was performing regularly with several bands — one included Chris Tompkins, cowriter of Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" — and at the Grand Ole Opry. A few years later, in Muscle Shoals, he met Patterson Hood and struck up a friendship that resulted in the pair performing together solo for a spell. Hood eventually extended an invitation to join the Truckers.

Three albums, one divorce — Isbell recently split with Trucker bassist Tucker — and thousands of touring miles later, Isbell is essentially starting all over again, but he doesn't quite see it that way. The road, he notes, has already been paved.

"I mean, I'm not starting from scratch," Isbell concludes. "I have a fan base that listened to the Truckers, and I feel like a lot of those people are now coming to our shows and buying our record. So wherever I go, I've probably been there before."

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit perform Wednesday, August 15, at Walter's on Washington, 4215 Washington, 713-862-2513. Centro-Matic is also on the bill.