The Naked Ride Home

Like The Eagles, Jackson Browne’s prominence came at a time when my attentions were elsewhere, so the offer to listen to this sparked some mild curiosity. This is Browne’s thirteenth album and his first of new songs since 1996. The mood is quietly rootsy for the most part with the basic five piece band accompanied by additional guitars, pedal steel and trumpet.

Browne is in good voice and delivering the songs with a sense of commitment. The atmospherics are high on a track like ‘Casino Nation’, where Jackson’s abstracted observations on America are matched by the mood of the music. Elsewhere there is a laid back feel to ‘Walking Town’ which has jazz like tones to the lead guitar lines. This languid mood is prevalent on other cuts too but the vocal delivery always manages to keep the songs from falling away into something too lazy for its own good and the lead instrumentation is always imaginative throughout.

Literate, adult contemporary music that doesn’t bring a bad name to the genre. Jackson is still delivering music that is obviously interesting to him as well has his audience.