On his debut Shades of Gray, Jason White proved he had a knack for gritty storytelling couched in fluent pop. He combined the two with such success that Tim McGraw picked up the record’s brooding “Red Ragtop” and made it into a controversial hit.
On Tonight’s Top Story, White’s story songs are even more grim and gripping. With doomed rich boy junkies, car crashes and suicidal heroines, the lyrics read like a Harry Crews novel. But the music and White’s fluid voice elevate the subject matter to where the characters are honored and celebrated as individuals on a level with the subjects of his striking love songs…..” – Performing Songwriter
“White alone is worth the price of admission. Shades Of Gray, his debut album, is as poetically populist as Springsteen, as clever as Elvis Costello and as catchy as Squeeze. You can hear traces of each in the brilliant slices of life White concocts. His hook-filled, heartfelt tunes would sound terrific pumping from the car radio, every hour on the hour. A world where “Ghost of Thoreau” or “Red Ragtop” is Top 40 material would be a beautiful place.” – Atlanta Journal Constitution
“He fearlessly tackles difficult subject matter (rape, murder, drug addiction) and still writes catchy-as-hell pop tunes without losing the poignancy such subjects demand. He’s a magnetic live performer and a writer with a wry wit and a social conscience. Simply put, he writes memorable songs with hooks that go on for miles.” – Music Row Magazine
“Jason White will be one of the last names entered in the Great American Songbook.” – David Mead
“You won’t find a smarter, wittier, or more soulful songwriter than Jason White. He can sing and play too.” – Will Kimbrough
I met Jason White a couple summers ago down in Nashville. We got together and wrote a couple songs that my band Old Crow Medicine Show will likely be singing for many summers to come – good, strong songs like Jason knows how to write and has been writing for a decade and more. The Longing is Jason’s finest work yet. Echoing seminal albums like There Goes Rhymin’ Simon and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, The Longing flashes with the rare wisdom that only a hit-his-stride songwriter can intone. Jason is certainly one of Nashville’s more accomplished writers, having scored major radio hits, but with this collection he becomes one of Nashville’s most honest – a writer’s writer who’s sincerity shows in every line. The longing which Jason imbues is one of hope and regret. These are archetypal tales of love and loss – the stuff of legend. His muse is a dark and fragile beauty, strong willed and hard to catch. In songs like “Power of Denial” and “April,” Jason’s Midwestern plaintiveness finds her ever elusive. But that’s longing for you – it’s the unattained that keeps us reaching, and Jason White’s reach has never been loftier than this fantastic record. In songs like the Prine-esque “Waitress,” White finds beauty in the profane. In the balmy kiss-off “California” he sings, “I hope you fall into the sea and drown,” with a rancorous wit worthy of Zevon or Wilson. And just like those epochal songwriter/producers, White is a studio savant when it comes to conducting the music on this record. For him, song is as much about music as it is story craft. In these tracks, like the 70s era FM gold they borrow from, it is the music and not the lyric that does the heavy lifting. Lyrics like smoke roll upwards, rising from carefully scored movements, which punctuate Jason’s tender singing with nuanced pulse and dynamic.
A more scrupulous set of studio musicians could not have been assembled in Nashville (or anywhere else for that matter) for this recording. Top down from Jim Hoke’s lilting clarinet to the smack of Mavericks’ drummer Paul Deakin, these ten songs build to crescendo with a musicianship that seems utterly scarce in our supposed Music City; The Longing says no, that today’s Nashville sound is as golden as it was when those 70s soul-searchers first flocked to it. For a Nashville which longs to be a bastion for independent songwriters, The Longing is a commercial-free must-hear. -Ketch Secor, Old Crow Medicine Show
