Jamey Johnson thought those were his daddy’s songs.
Ashley McBryde once said that we are all products of everything we’ve heard or watched over the years when talking about her latest single, “Ain’t Enough Cowboy Songs.”
“We are all just the sum of every song that we’ve ever heard and every movie that we’ve ever seen.”
The longer that quote has sat with me, the more I find it true. And as someone who is not in the musical-making space, I can only imagine how much more accurate that statement is for those who are. When creating any melody or lyric, it must be beyond frustrating when you think the idea is wholly yours to discover that it already exists in the space and that it’s probably floated through your ears at some point.
Jamey Johnson recently opened up on the Fully Armed Podcast about a time when this happened to him on his musical journey. However, Johnson’s experience with this theory involves thinking someone else was responsible for making the music he was digesting.
Host Chris Hennessee asked Johnson if he’d never had a moment in his career, whether recent or back when he was playing gospel music with his father, where he’d heard something that made him go “Hmm?”
“It sounds kind of weird, but growing up where we did, we were kind of disconnected in a way. I mean, we didn’t have neighbors. I mean none because we lived in a trailer way off in the country on the side of the road, and there weren’t any neighbors.”
Because Johnson grew up with an old man named Bob Sellers at the end of the road from him, he noted that they were sheltered in a way. He recalls a specific moment in his career when he realized he’d heard something before but never realized where it came from when he first heard Hank Williams sing.
“I remember my dad taking out a book and singing songs. Well, the songs he was singing were Hank Williams’ songs, but we didn’t have any Hank Williams records. We didn’t have any Hank Williams records, but I knew all of Hank Williams’ songs.
And I remember the first time I heard Hank Williams singing one of those songs, and I thought, ‘That’s my daddy’s song.’ And that’s how it began, was just kind of learning music.”
Crazy how the mind works at times.
Building off that question, Johnson talks about what kind of music made him tick growing up. While he loved Hank Williams, Another favorite was fellow Alabama natives, and one of the most successful country bands ever, Alabama.
“Alabama was the one that did me, from an early age. My mother was a big Alabama fan, and, of course, I was too. The first time I heard ‘My Home’s In Alabama,’ I was hooked. And what’s what I wanted to do.”
Talk about a full circle moment when, later in his career, Jamey Johnson got to open for Alabama and made the majority of his setlist Alabama songs. (But not the ones included on their setlist… that’s extremely frowned upon.)
Even the smallest of memories can influence an artist’s sound or ideas they have in the future. It’s wild how true the statement is that we are all just a product of everything we have heard or seen throughout our lives. While Jamey Johnson’s dad might not have penned all of those Hank Williams songs, it’s a killer memory that he thought his dad was that prolific a songwriter.
Jamey has a number of concert dates announced for this year and probably more to come after teasing a new album recently, so be sure to check out Vivid Seats to grab tickets. They’re the only platform the gives you free tickets just for going to concerts, which is a pretty great deal if you ask me.
Check out the whole interview while you’re here.
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