Album Review – Jamey Johnson’s “Midnight Gasoline”

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#510 (Traditional Country), with some #573 (Country Blues) and #580 (Outlaw Country) on the Country DDS.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. 14 years without a new, original album from one of your favorite artists is a lot of absence, especially when that artist is a songwriter with two CMA Song of the Year trophies, and comes with one of the most critically-acclaimed careers in modern country history under his belt.

Sometimes in music, it’s not what you do. It’s what you don’t do that enhances your legacy. In the absence, the value of your presence is measured. For some, that value fades into the background, almost like dust. For others, their value only grows in stature to become legendary, and longed for. “Legendary” is how you would describe Jamey Johnson songs like “In Color” and “High Cost of Living.”

Jamey Johnson never stopped touring as a live performer, or collaborating with many of his closest peers. But perhaps it’s better that Johnson took time off from the studio between the last era when songs still meant something in country, and the era when appreciation for songs and traditional sounds has returned. Competing for air time and attention with the Florida Georgia Line’s of the world probably wouldn’t have been a very good look for Jamey, or very healthy for him, or his legacy.

The music of Jamey Johnson isn’t a toe-tapping good time. It’s like a slow rolling locomotive, or a line of severe thunderstorms preceding a cold front plodding across the open plains, or a bulldozer moving heavy mounds of raw earthen material. It’s moody, and bluesy. The music of Jamey Johnson doesn’t go anywhere fast. But when it arrives, heaven and earth succumb to its power as it vibrates and envelops every atom in its presence. That’s the experience of Midnight Gasoline.

Whether it’s the amorous “What a View” or the solemn “21 Guns,” Johnson instills each and every song with the maximal amount of emotion possible. He showcases his clever use of perspective in songwriting in the opening song “Bad Guy” and “Someday When I’m Old.” Though “Saturday Night in New Orleans” might sound like a party, Johnson instead uses the song to emphasize the seedy, sticky nature of The Big Easy.


The one upbeat moment of the album is Jamey’s rendition of the Charlie Daniel’s tune “Trudy,” which has emerged over the last few years as an unlikely but welcomed country music standard. Along with “Saturday Night in New Orleans,” this is where you get a taste of what seeing Jamey Johnson in-person is like, with a full sound including brass. It’s like a country music symphony.

Midnight Gasoline nonetheless suffers somewhat from the same fate as Jamey Johnson’s last album, the four-sided The Guitar Song. With so much slow and mid tempo material, it can get tedious at times, even if each song on its own holds your attention. This is also one of those albums where half the songs were released before the album, meaning once the album arrived, some of the new car smell had already worn off.

But this takes nothing from the songwriting clinic Johnson throws throughout the dozen tracks, and the way he marries strong writing with inspired and purposeful performances. The album is also deftly produced, and seamlessly so, even though the first part is credited to the Kent Hardly Playboys, while the second half is attributed to Dave Cobb.

Though we tend to overlook it and some have forgotten, Jamey Johnson in part helped lay the foundation for the country music revolution that has taken hold today. He was one of the first to feature producer Dave Cobb and guitarist Jason “Rowdy” Cope of The Steel Woods. He helped guys like Brent Cobb and Shooter Jennings get their foot in the door. And now as an elder statesman with gray hair, a gray beard, Johnson has returned to contributing original material as a torchbearer of traditional country.

14 years didn’t render Jamey Johnson forgotten in the country music sphere. Not dissimilar to the return of the Turnpike Troubadours, Cross Canadian Ragweed, and Sturgill Simpson as Johnny Blue Skies, Jamey Johnson’s re-emergence is triumphant, exceedingly welcome and warmly received, and arguably worth the wait, however elongated, with the favorable results of Midnight Gasoline.

1 3/4 Guns Up (8.3/10)

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Song Reviews:


1. “Bad Guy” – A good song to start off the album, though maybe not a great one. It captures Jamey flexing his songwriting muscles and using the dimension of perspective to make an interesting story. It’s a songwriter’s song about songwriting, with a side of love gone wrong, set to Jamey’s signature slow tempo and country bluesy sound.

2. “Midnight Gasoline” – A superbly-written song that deserves the distinction of the title track, Johnson takes the inspiration of a late night drive to craft a song most anyone can relate to. This track also emphasizes that it’s not just what you say, but how you say it. The sound of the guitar amplifier’s 60-cycle hum at the start helps to set the empty-hearted feeling the song looks to evoke.


3. “What A View” – Co-written with Dallas Davidson, Randy Houser, and Rob Hatch, “What A View” was inspired by looking out the window on a tropical songwriting destination. Though “What A View” gives Midnight Gasoline a requisite love song, it feels a little pedestrian, especially when Johnson proves through the rest of the album what he’s capable of.

4. “21 Guns” – As a retired corporal in the Marine Corps. and a strong supporter of the troops, you can tell this song means a lot to Jamey, and is something he had to write and record. It’s not the fault of “21 Guns” or Johnson that the sheer volume of these troop-supporting songs in the mainstream has made them all sound somewhat cliché.

5. “Someday When I’m Old” – Such an excellent song from Jamey Johnson, done slightly tongue-in-cheek, but also smartly told with a brilliant use of perspective, similar to the opening song “Bad Guy.” Don’t we all have a strange appeal for a time when we’re old enough to lose some of our most unimportant give-a-shits, and really savor the most important things in life.


6. “Trudy (feat. Randy Houser)” – Tyler Childers might be the guy responsible for plucking this song out of the country music ether and resuscitating it in the modern context when it was his show closer for many years. Jamey Johnson’s version gives up nothing to anyone else’s though, including ol’ Charlie Daniels himself. It’s a stellar take, and perhaps the most fun track on the album.

7. “One More Time” – A country bluesy heartbreaker where Jamey Johnson once again proves his potency as a performer, not just a songwriter, making you feel every word and note, not just hear them.

8. “Saturday Night in New Orleans” – You might expect a party from the title, but this song is more a travelogue down the seedy alleyways of The Big Easy, seeming to pass judgement upon them, while also clearly indulging and enjoying in their pleasures. Similar to “Trudy,” you get the full-bodied experience of Jamey Johnson’s excellent live band including the horns on this track.


9. “Sober” – Forget country blues. This is pretty much a blues song, period. Jamey sings his guts out to a slow tempo about his struggles with getting sober in a city that runs on parties and liquor sponsors, and the bars stay open until 3 AM. But it’s also a song about perseverance, commitment, and ultimately, victory.

10. “I’m Tired Of It All (feat. Randy Houser)” – This feels like the sleeper song of this album. Set to an Outlaw half-time beat, it’s about how being an Outlaw is never as glamorous as many country songs make it out to be. You don’t have to suspend disbelief while listening to Jamey Johnson and Randy Houser sing this.

11. “No Time Like The Past” – On an album that sometimes takes almost too much of a slow and plodding approach, “No Time Like The Past” finds the perfect tempo, and the perfect attitude and mood for a quality song co-written with Chris Stapleton.

12. “What You Answer To” – Jamey Johnson closes out the album with another cleverly-written song that says more than what the words themselves do. He even broaches the preferred pronouns debate, but in a way most everyone should be able to get a chuckle from.

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