JACKSON BROWNE

A laureate of the Laurel Canyon scene of the 70s, Jackson Browne’s love of guitar has fuelled a 50-year career that keeps getting better. As he releases his latest album, Downhill From Everywhere, we catch up with the Californian songsmith to talk old guitars and new directions

- Jamie Dickson

Jackson Browne is one of America’s greatest singer-songwriters. His career took off in 1972 when he gave the Eagles their first Top 40 hit with his freewheeling ballad Take It Easy. Going solo off the back of that success, he went on to record some of the defining albums of the 70s, including Late For The Sky and Running On Empty. Over the five decades of his career, two things have remained constant: a cool yet compassionate eye for the joys and tragedies of life, and superb songcraft. Browne’s showing no sign of slowing down and his latest album, Downhill From Everywhere, takes on the big subjects of 2021, from the politics of hate to the decline of the natural world. The title of the record ushers us into its main themes, Jackson explains.

“Well, it comes from a remark or a quote by an oceanographer named Captain Charles Moore,” he says. “He’s the man who discovered the great swirling kind of plastic soup out of the North Pacific. And he basically just said that the ocean is downhill from everywhere. And I say that in the song – it’s really that the ocean is downhill from humanity and everything that humanity does.”

It’s an apt choice of title, because the album tries to address the gnawing sense that modern life is sliding towards a cliff-edge, driven by over-consumption and social division. The reason the music engages the listener’s heart, rather than just washing over you in a tide of angst, lies in Jackson’s gift for telling the human stories behind the headlines.