Jason Eady – Mississippi (unplugged)
Jason’s 2023 album Mississippi featured acoustic guitars & handclaps and had a grit blended with Southern blues style – it wasn’t exactly a completely electric rock affair. Nonetheless his revisioning of the album this year in Mississippi (unplugged) takes things down ever further, all the way down until it’s just purely Jason all alone on guitar and vocals. Hushed and straight from the heart, this record shows how solid Jason’s songwriting is – the songs are just as breathtaking this way as they were the first time, or more.
The production features the sounds of the wooden guitar and the slide of fingers on strings in combination with Jason’s genuine reliable vocal delivery, and the result is an expansive resonance.
The excitement of “Way Down in Mississippi” (“I’ve got the music in my bones”) rings just as true with the Southern acoustic blues vibrating along with the messages. In “Burn It Down” the confessional “every time things start to go my way I burn it down like a temple on judgement day / I was scared of a woman trying to treat me right” rings just as deep and true as the rootsier version, adding a more intimate earthy layer to what the song ideally conjures.
“New Tradition” is introspective again at a slower pace and again Jason’s phrasing and instinct for rhythm is spot on: “I need a new vision and way to see the world / something to keep me going / hand me down a new tradition.” “Wayside” features an emphasis on the back beat and is a homage to good bluesy grooves.
When you write enough excellent moving songs to release a record that’s excellent from start to finish, it’s a shame to let it be a quick commodity consumed in a few months. Rereleasing the songs under a fresh, in this case more intimate, take ultimately seems like simply the right thing to do. Especially when you’re Jason Eady and you wrote Mississippi.
Mississippi (unplugged) was produced by Jason Eady and engineered by Andrew Hernandez.
Musicians on the album are Jason Eady on vocals and acoustic guitar.
Find more details and information here: https://www.jasoneady.com/music
Enjoy our previous coverage here: REVIEW: Jason Eady “Mississippi”
