''Sirens of the Ditch'' is the debut solo album released by singer-songwriter and former

Drive-By Truckers Drive-By Truckers are an American rock band based in Athens, Georgia. Two of five current members (Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley) are originally from The Shoals region of northern Alabama and met as roommates at the University of North Alabama ...

lead guitarist,

Jason Isbell Michael Jason Isbell (; born February 1, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is known for his solo career, his work with the band The 400 Unit, and as a member of Drive-By Truckers for six years, from 2001 to 2007. Isbell h ...

. The album was released on July 10, 2007. After leaving

amicably in 2007, Isbell released ''Sirens of the Ditch'' on

New West Records New West Records is a record label based in Nashville, Tennessee, and Athens, Georgia. It had offices in Burbank, California, and Beverly Hills, California. The label was established in 1998 by Cameron Strang "for artists who perform real music ...

. ''Sirens of the Ditch'' was recorded at FAME Studios, where among the musicians helping to record the album was

Patterson Hood Patterson David Hood (born March 24, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter and co-founder of the band Drive-By Truckers. Early life Hood was born in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the son of Jan Patterson Adams and David Hood, the longtime bassist ...

of Drive by Truckers and

Spooner Oldham Dewey Lindon "Spooner" Oldham (born June 14, 1943) is an American songwriter and session musician. An organist, he recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, at FAME Studios as part of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section on such hit R&B songs as Percy ...

, famous for his work with

Aretha Franklin Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Referred to as the " Queen of Soul", she has twice been placed ninth in ''Rolling Stone''s "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". With ...

and

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay ...

.Mitter, Siddhartha
"He'll keep on trucking, but solo."
''Boston Globe'' July 15, 2007. According to

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

writer Catherine Lewis, ''Sirens of the Ditch'' has "a more bluesy pop sound" than Isbell's work with Drive-By Truckers. The first single from the album, "Brand New Kind of Actress," deals with the death of

Lana Clarkson Lana Jean Clarkson (April 5, 1962 – February 3, 2003) was an American actress and fashion model. During the 1980s, she rose to prominence in several sword-and-sorcery films. In 2003, record producer Phil Spector shot and killed Clarkson insi ...

Phil Spector Harvey Phillip Spector (born Harvey Philip Spector; December 26, 1939January 16, 2021) was an American record producer and songwriter, best known for his innovative recording practices and entrepreneurship in the 1960s, followed decades later by ...

's mansion. Another single, "Dress Blues," concerns the death of Corporal Matthew Conley, a US Marine from Isbell's hometown who was killed in the

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...

. "Dress Blues" was also recorded by the

Zac Brown Band Zac Brown Band is an American country music band based in Atlanta, Georgia. The lineup consists of Zac Brown (lead vocals, guitar), Jimmy De Martini ( fiddle, vocals), John Driskell Hopkins (bass guitar, guitar, baritone guitar, banjo, ukulel ...

(featuring Jewel), on their April 2015 release,

Jekyll + Hyde ''Jekyll + Hyde'' is the fourth major-label studio album by the Zac Brown Band. It was released on April 28, 2015. The album's lead single, " Homegrown", was released on January 12, 2015. " Heavy Is the Head", featuring Chris Cornell, was release ...

. The album was re-released on July 13, 2018. Titled ''Sirens of the Ditch: Deluxe Edition'', the album features four previously unreleased songs.

Track listing

Personnel

* David Barbe – keyboards * Mike Dillon – drums * David Hood – bass guitar * Patterson Hood – acoustic guitar, electric guitar *

–

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

, bass guitar,

dobro Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar. The Dobro was originally ...

, acoustic guitar, electric guitar,

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

, piano, lead vocals, background vocals,

Wurlitzer The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...

* Clay Leverett – background vocals * Brad Morgan – drums * John Neff –

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

* Spooner Oldham – Hammond organ *

Shonna Tucker Shonna Tucker is a bassist and songwriter from Killen, Alabama, near Muscle Shoals. Background Tucker grew up in Killen, Alabama, receiving her first bass at age 12, a gift from her father. She describes her musical education as "mostly play ...

– bass guitar, background vocals

References

{{Authority control 2007 debut albums Jason Isbell albums New West Records albums