Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne

Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948 in Heidelberg , Germany ) is an American rock musician and singer-songwriter .

biography

Born in Germany as the son of a civilian employee of the US Army stationed there, he has lived in Los Angeles since he was three . As a teenager, Browne learned to play the guitar and during his school days in Orange County, California became a folk guitarist and a member of several bands, including the country formation Nitty Gritty Dirt Band . In the 1960s he wrote his first songs, which were released in 1967/68 on records by Tom Rush , Nico and Steve Noonan. In the early 1970s he was one of the most important American songwriters alongside Joni Mitchell and James Taylor . His greatest successes to date were in the 1970s and early 1980s, when each of his albums reached the American top ten .

In the 1990s only two new studio albums were released. Browne has been committed to environmental issues since the late 1970s. He is a co-founder of the Musicians United for Safe Energy and performed in so-called no-nukes concerts , which, among other things, spoke out against nuclear energy generation. During this time, musical appearances often took the form of guest appearances (for example at Bonnie Raitt ) and at various benefit events.

Jackson Browne lives in Culver City , Los Angeles County . Between 2000 and 2002 he lived in Barcelona , Spain , which is briefly hinted at in his 2002 song The Night Inside Me (“Maybe I should go back to Spain”). His more than 30 years of presence in the music business, during which he influenced folk and country rock in America, was honored in the spring of 2004 with the induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . In 2007 she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame .

Browne prefers to play on acoustic guitars from Gibson Guitar Corporation and here again mainly J-45 models. In his honor, Gibson released a Jackson Browne signature guitar in 2011 .

Private

In 1971, Browne had a relationship with Joni Mitchell who attempted suicide when he left her. He had met Phyllis Major (* 1946), with whom he had a son in 1973 and whom he married in 1975. Phyllis Major died of suicide in March 1976.

In January 1981, Browne married Australian model Lynne Sweeney. Her son Ryan Browne (* 1982) has been bassist and singer in the band Sonny and the Sunsets since 2007 . Browne and Lynne Sweeney were divorced in 1983 when he began dating Daryl Hannah ; this relationship ended in 1992.

His hits

His following has grown with each album since his debut album Jackson Browne (Saturate Before Using) , which includes his first top ten hit Doctor, My Eyes, and the folk-rock song Rock Me on the Water , and its “metaphysical Graffiti “(New Musical Express) gained more and more recognition. David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young once described Browne in the 1980s as "the damn best songwriter in America today whose songs give you goose bumps". Although Browne wasn't exactly keen to produce hits, he had several chart successes. His most sustained single hit was with the song Running On Empty , which was later featured on the soundtrack of the movie Forrest Gump , when Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks ) made his month-long run across the United States .

Four years before this US hit he wrote the Eagles' first hit, Take It Easy, together with Glenn Frey . The text formulations of this song have partly entered the American colloquial language (Rowohlt Rocklexikon). Other hits he wrote for the Eagles with Frey and Don Henley were Doolin 'Dalton and James Dean . His cover version of the Maurice Williams hit Stay (Just a Little Bit Longer) , the original shortest US number 1 hit of all time, which he played for his audience at the end of a concert and modified accordingly , also received great attention . This song appeared on his LP Running On Empty and is better known in Germany today than the original of the Zodiacs from 1960, not least because of the accompanying falsetto voice by David Lindley and a product advertisement for the Bitburger brewery that has been using this song for years .

With Somebody's Baby he achieved his biggest single chart success in the USA in 1982 (7th place). The song was used for the soundtrack of the American hit movie I think I stand in the woods (Original title: Fast Times at Ridgemont High), with the young Sean Penn in the lead role. This song didn't appear on his first best-of album until 14 years later. In the mid-1980s, when the US television series Miami Vice was the most successful crime series in the United States, he contributed to the episode Stone's War with his song Lives in the Balance , which was also published on one of the Miami Vice samplers. He was able to book another success in 1985 as a duet partner of Clarence Clemons on his single You're a Friend of Mine .

The Rolling Stone listed Browne ranked 37 of the 100 best songwriters of all time .

His albums

The 1970s

From the beginning, Jackson Browne attached importance to the coherent overall concept of his albums. He received top marks for these from recognized critics. The "imposing greatness" (Rolling Stone) of his albums from the 1970s earned him a leading position among the singer-songwriters in the USA.

The debut album Jackson Browne (Saturate Before Using) followed with For Everyman, the album with his personal version of the hit Take It Easy . The title song of the third album Late for the Sky can be heard in the multiple award-winning film Taxi Driver and is still a must on many of his concerts today. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame counts him among the 500 songs that shaped rock and roll.

In 1976 Browne's next album, The Pretender, followed . He dealt with topics such as clearing up a father-son conflict, the search for great love, and a "juggler" ( The Pretender ) who ponders his life and finally realizes that his existence really only consists of getting up and going to work in order to fall into bed exhausted again in the evening, and who urgently wants to change this situation. "I will rise up, to find a woman, the color in my colorless paint-by-numbers Dreams ( paint-by-number dreams ) brings," he describes his aspirations and his generation in his figurative language. The album was classified in the Rowohlt Rock Lexicon as a milestone LP of its year.

In 1977 Browne's extraordinary album Running On Empty was released . All of the songs were recorded on tour with the renowned session band The Section , some in the rooms of hotels where Browne stayed or on the bus ( Nothin 'but Time ) and at the concerts themselves. The album is a mixture of piano-heavy emotional music Songs like Love Needs a Heart and Rosie and rock and roll pieces like You Love the Thunder . With his version of the Gary Davis song Cocaine and modified lyrics, he was able to find an ironic side to the sad subject of drugs and described the indifference that drug use can lead to: “You take Sally, I take Sue, there ain't no difference between the two "says the beginning of the title, which finally ends with a warning against drug use with the lines:" They say you are 27 years old, but that is impossible! If one looks at you, one thinks that you are already 45 ”. With this album he put the dark side of touring life in the center. In the live concert recording of the song The Load Out , he complains to the audience about the stress of the tour and the long absence from home: “We would like to stay with you and keep playing, but we have to go through the night going to the next concert in Chicago ... or Detroit? I don't know, we play so many concerts during a tour and all cities look somehow the same to us. When the sun comes up tomorrow you will wake up in your town, but we will be performing a thousand miles from here following our tour schedule. ”Immediately after The Load-Out , the album ends with Stay (Just a Little Bit Longer) . In the CD inlay, he pays tribute to the Zodiacs by referring to the original line of text “Your mama don't mind” with the comment: “The Zodiacs don't mind…”. The album reached multi-platinum status with over 7 million copies sold in the US alone. In 2018, at the annual NAMM in Anaheim , California, the protagonists received a late honor for this groundbreaking work. The Section was inducted into the TEC Awards Hall of Fame, while Jackson Browne received the Les Paul Innovation Award.

The 1980s

The following album Hold Out conquered - aided by the previous album Running On Empty , which made it to number 3 in the US album charts in a total of 65 weeks - immediately after its release in September 1980, the 1st place in the US album Charts, even though there wasn't a single top ten hit on it. For the first time, Browne moved clearly audibly away from his usual folk and country ballads. The opener Disco Apocalypse was a swan song for the outgoing "Saturday Night Fever" in the late 1970s. There were also pieces from the category of classic US guitar rock and emotionally charged pieces such as Call It a Loan and Of Missing Persons , which he dedicated to the daughter of his music colleague and friend Lowell George , who died so early .

With his following LP Lawyers in Love he had a respectable success in his native Germany, among other things with the single Tender Is the Night . In contrast to the previous albums, there was also a lot of criticism. The pieces are mostly smooth LA rock, wrote a critic of the German edition of Rolling Stone (see review archive). At the 1986 concert in Essen, Browne described the title song Lawyers in Love , which has a vision of the future relationship between the USA and Russia, with a wink as "his least understood song". Even in the United States, nobody would understand the meaning of the text.

The album Lives in the Balance with melodies spiced with Caribbean, South American and Spanish elements was counted among the best 100 albums in the year of publication. With the following in the USA, this album had only average success, as Browne sharply criticized the then incumbent Reagan government in some songs on the LP and took a clear political position for the first time.

In Soldier of Plenty he denounces the futility of war: “You (the government) measure peace with arms and progress in megatons, AEIO, you speak as if you know what is good for everyone, but what is good about what you do did what's good in a world where war is raging and people die for the little things, for a little corn and a few beans? Who is left when your war is won? The soldier of misfortune with an evil reputation and the soldier on foreign soil. "

Jackson Browne with his longtime partner Daryl Hannah

In the title song Lives in the Balance he further states: “A government lies to its people and a country drifts into war. War is sold to us the same way cars and clothes are sold to us. Who are the ones who are promoting the need for war? In any case, it is not the ones who then have to fight and die in war. The wars are fought in places whose names we don't even know. ”In the song For America , he asks,“ Do the parents who sent their sons to Vietnam really believe that your life will be safe when the next war comes? ” "Until I go under or lie six feet below the ground," he promises in his song Till I Go Down , "I won't turn a blind eye to the warmongers who send other people to war."

But also social hot spots were the topic of this album, which were honored in the songs Black and White and Lawless Avenues . The latter title tells the fate of some gang members in the streets of Los Angeles in the style of a modern West Side story . In just a few sentences and sections, Browne managed to draw pictures that sketched the problems of the young people in a street gang that did not experience a happy ending. This song was used on the Internet as a teaching piece for Internet-based English lessons, where its content is analyzed.

Jackson Browne presented himself to the German audience on the occasion of the appearance of Lives in the Balance at one of the Rockpalast nights in 1986 in Essen . The Essen concert is one of Browne's few recorded appearances in Germany and has been broadcast on WDR a number of times over the years. At this concert, the newly released songs were the focus, but he also played old classics such as The Pretender and Running On Empty .

With the album World in Motion in 1989 he continued the trend of criticizing political and social grievances with songs such as The Word Justice , World in Motion and When the Stone Begins to Turn . He dedicated the latter title to Nelson Mandela, who was still imprisoned at the time, and demanded with missionary seriousness freedom for South Africa and justice for Mandela: “I have come here to praise Mandela, and I send the following message to his prison guards: Your walls may hold this man prisoner , but they will never be able to stop the movement he initiated! Meanwhile, a new generation is growing up, who will see the day when this system crumbles and collapses. ”A cover version of the song I Am a Patriot ( Little Steven ) and My Personal Revenge round off the album.

The 1990s and 2000s

In the following 12 years only three more studio albums were released, in which he again devoted himself to more private, emotional topics and only occasionally criticized society and politics.

His album I'm Alive was released in 1993 after a four-year career break. Lyrically and musically it was a return to the albums of the 1970s, which was expressed through pieces such as Too Many Angels , Two of Me, Two of You and especially through the classic piano piece Sky Blue and Black . The record is marked by a life crisis that Browne suffered due to the separation from his long-term partner, the actress Daryl Hannah . In the defiant title song I'm Alive , he closes with this topic (“... but those dreams are dead and I'm alive”) and directs his gaze back to the front ( Everywhere I go ).

The Looking East album, released in 1996 , was not able to build on the previous album in terms of reviews. The Barricades of Heaven , Alive in the World and the title track found attention on the later best-of and solo acoustic albums. With the song Information Wars , Browne laments the “information wars” that the media are waging by drumming and manipulating people with a flood of information. “The more news you watch, the less you know what is really going on out in the world,” he warns. The song Culver Moon is dedicated to his hometown of Culver City , one of the suburbs of Los Angeles, and in the samba-rhythmic Nino he tells the story of a young boy with a great future in Los Angeles.

In 2000 he received the Native American Music Award for Best Producer and for Song of the Year for Blue Indians with John Trudell .

His first album in the new millennium, The Naked Ride Home , deals with the Bush regime (Casino Nation) in one song , but is otherwise apolitical. Fast-paced pieces like The Night Inside Me alternate with quieter pieces like My Stunning Mystery Companion . Critics complained that the songs drag on too much and that the shortness of earlier albums is not achieved.

In 2003 and 2004 Jackson Browne was on a world tour almost continuously, in spring 2003 and autumn 2004 also in Germany. He went on a solo acoustic tour, where he spontaneously performed songs from his extensive repertoire on acoustic guitar, keyboard and piano at the request of the fans. Two CDs resulted from this tour, the first part was released in autumn 2005, the second part only in March 2008. In August 2006 he was a guest in Germany with David Lindley , but only for one concert in Hamburg.

In August 2008, Browne sued US presidential candidate John McCain and the Republican Party for copyright infringement. Browne argued that his title Running On Empty ( driving on Reserve ) from 1977 without his permission as background music in a TV commercial of the Republicans was used. Because of the damage to their image, Browne's lawyer demanded $ 75,000 from those responsible.

In September 2008 his studio album Time the Conqueror was released. In terms of content, the album again offers the full range that is known from Jackson Browne. He criticizes the song Going Down to Cuba , which is about the relationship between the USA and Cuba, while The Drums of War is a bitterly ironic look back at the Iraq war and with the title Where Were You he thinks the Bush- Government pretended not to have taken care of the proper rebuilding of New Orleans and to have left the city and its citizens with the damage after the storm and flood disaster several years ago. "Where were you when the promise was made to return and rebuild and restore to its people the city that gave us the first American music, true inspiration and the freedom to use it?" Browne asks the then US President. Emotional topics are dealt with in the remaining songs, here Just Say Yeah is an example , where he deals with the ever-topical question at which point friendship ends and love between two people begins. Time the Conqueror reached the Top 20 on Billboard 200 , the official US album chart , in October 2008 , the best placement of a Browne album since Lawyers in Love (1983, 8th) and in the category of independent albums it took the second place.

On the occasion of this album, a major US and European tour took place until summer 2009. In Germany, Jackson Browne appeared in April 2009 a. a. in Munich, Berlin, Cologne and Stuttgart.

Jackson Browne has released a total of 18 albums between 1972 and 2010, including twelve studio albums, two best-of albums and four live albums. In the summer of 2013 Jackson Browne was on tour in the United States with the singer / songwriter Jimmy Buffett , who is based in Key West / Florida .

In 2014, Browne released another studio album entitled Standing in the Breach , which hit the charts in the US, England and Germany.

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)				Remarks
		DE	CH	UK	US
1972	Jackson Browne	-	-	-	US53 platinum (23 weeks)US	The cover imprint "Saturate Before Using" is also the unofficial name of the album
1973	For Everyman	-	-	-	US43 platinum (38 weeks)US	Guest musicians: David Crosby , Glenn Frey , Don Henley , Rockaday Johnnie , Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt Place 457 of the Rolling Stone 500
1974	Late for the sky	-	-	-	US14th platinum (29 weeks)US	Producers: Al Schmitt, Jackson Browne Place 372 of the Rolling Stone 500
1976	The Pretender	-	-	UK26th silver (5 weeks)UK	US5 × 3 Triple platinum (35 weeks)US	Recording: Sunset Sounds Recording Studios, Hollywood Platz 391 of the Rolling Stone 500
1978	Running On Empty	DE- gold DE	-	UK28 gold (7 weeks)UK	US3 × 7 Seven times platinum (65 weeks)US	Guest Singers: Doug Haywood, Rosemary Butler Producer: Jackson Browne
1980	Hold out	-	-	UK44 (5 weeks) UK	US1 × 2 Double platinum (38 weeks)US	Producer: Greg Ladanyi, Jackson Browne First published: June 24, 1980
1983	Lawyers in Love	DE24 (12 weeks) DE	-	UK37 (7 weeks) UK	US8th platinum (33 weeks)US	Recording: Downtown, Los Angeles Arranger: Danny Kortchmar
1986	Lives in the balance	DE25 (14 weeks) DE	CH20 (9 weeks) CH	UK36 (7 weeks) UK	US23 gold (31 weeks)US	Recordings: Sunset Sound Factory and The Outpost, Hollywood
1989	World in Motion	DE56 (11 weeks) DE	-	UK39 (2 weeks) UK	US45 (16 weeks) US	Recording: Groove Masters Santa Monica, Island Studios London, Power Station Manhattan
1993	I'm alive	DE53 (11 weeks) DE	-	-	US40 gold (21 weeks)US	with backing vocals by Jennifer Warnes , David Crosby , Don Henley a . a.
1996	Looking East	DE80 (4 weeks) DE	-	UK47 (1 week) UK	US36 (9 weeks) US	Recording: Groove Masters, Santa Monica, California
2002	The Naked Ride Home	DE74 (2 weeks) DE	-	UK53 (1 week) UK	US36 (6 weeks) US	Producers: Jackson Browne, Kevin McCormick
2005	Solo Acoustic Vol. 1	-	-	-	US55 (5 weeks) US
2008	Solo Acoustic Vol. 2	-	-	UK92 (1 week) UK	US24 (5 weeks) US
	Time the Conqueror	DE98 (1 week) DE	-	UK57 (1 week) UK	US20 (6 weeks) US	Producers: Jackson Browne, Paul Dieter
2010	Love is strange	-	-	UK80 (1 week) UK	US46 (2 weeks) US	with David Lindley double CD
2014	Standing in the Breach	DE99 (1 week) DE	-	UK31 (2 weeks) UK	US15 (6 weeks) US	Producers: Jackson Browne, Paul Dieter

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More albums

• 1967: First Album (unreleased)
• 1994: Retrospective in the Studio

Compilations

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)				Remarks
		DE	CH	UK	US
1997	The Next Voice You Hear - The Best Of	DE51 (3 weeks) DE	-	-	US47 platinum (13 weeks)US
2004	The Very Best of Jackson Browne	-	-	UK53 silver (3 weeks)UK	US46 gold (10 weeks)US

More compilations

• 2011: On Stage
• 2011: Live in Milan
• 2013: Where the Shadows Fall: The Classic 1972 Broadcast

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)				Remarks
		DE	CH	UK	US
1972	Doctor My Eyes Jackson Browne	-	-	-	US8 (12 weeks) US
	Rock Me on the Water Jackson Browne	-	-	-	US48 (9 weeks) US
1973	Redneck Friend For Everyman	-	-	-	US85 (10 weeks) US
1977	Here Come Those Tears Again The Pretender	-	-	-	US23 (9 weeks) US
	The Pretender The Pretender	-	-	-	US58 (5 weeks) US
1978	Running On Empty Running On Empty	-	-	-	US11 (17 weeks) US
	Stay Running On Empty	-	-	UK12 (11 weeks) UK	US20 (15 weeks) US
	The Load-Out Running On Empty	-	-	-	US20 (7 weeks) US
1980	Boulevard Hold Out	-	-	-	US19 (16 weeks) US
	That Girl Could Sing Hold Out	-	-	-	US22 (13 weeks) US
1982	Somebody's Baby Fast Times at Ridgemont High	-	-	-	US7 (19 weeks) US	from the soundtrack to the film I think I'm in the woods
1983	Lawyers in Love Lawyers in Love	-	-	-	US13 (15 weeks) US
	Tender Is the Night Lawyers in Love	-	-	-	US25 (17 weeks) US
1984	For a Rocker Lawyers in Love	-	-	-	US45 (9 weeks) US
1985	You're a Friend of Mine Hero (Clarence Clemons)	-	-	-	US18 (19 weeks) US	with Clarence Clemons
1986	For America Lives in the Balance	-	-	-	US30 (12 weeks) US
	In the Shape of a Heart Lives in the Balance	-	-	UK66 (2 weeks) UK	US70 (7 weeks) US
1994	Everywhere I Go I'm Alive	DE79 (6 weeks) DE	-	UK67 (1 week) UK	-

More singles

• 1973: Take It Easy
• 1974: Walking Slow
• 1974: Fountain of Sorrow
• 1976: Doctor My Eyes
• 1977: You Love the Thunder
• 1977: Rock Around the World
• 1979: Before the Deluge
• 1980: Hold On, Hold Out
• 1980: Disco Apocalypse
• 1986: Lives in the Balance
• 1986: Black and White
• 1989: Anything Can Happen
• 1989: World in Motion
• 1989: Chasing You into the Light
• 1993: I'm Alive
• 1994: Sky Blue and Black
• 1994: Unloved ( Jann Arden with Jackson Browne)
• 1996: I'm the Cat
• 1996: Some Bridges
• 1996: Looking East
• 1997: The Rebel Jesus
• 2002: The Night Inside Me
• 2002: The Naked Ride Home

Video albums

• 1994: Going Home (TV special with interviews and live performance)
• 2012: I'll Do Anything - Live in Concert

Awards for music sales

Platinum record

•  Canada
  • 1978: for the album Running On Empty

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Germany (BVMI)	-	gold1	-	250,000	musikindustrie.de
Canada (MC)	-	-	platinum1	100,000	musiccanada.com
United States (RIAA)	-	3 × gold3	17 × platinum17th	18,500,000	riaa.com
United Kingdom (BPI)	2 × silver2	gold1	-	220,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	2 × silver2	5 × gold5	18 × platinum18th

literature

• Siegfried Schmidt-Joos , Barry Graves : Rock Lexicon. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1973, 2nd edition 1975, reprint 1978, ISBN 3-499-16177-X , p. 68.

Web links

• Literature by and about Jackson Browne in the catalog of the German National Library
• Jackson Browne at Allmusic (English)
• Jackson Browne at Discogs (English)
• Homepage of Jackson Browne
• Jackson Browne in the Songwriters Hall of Fame

Individual evidence

1. ^ Siegfried Schmidt-Joos, Barry Graves: Rock-Lexikon. 1975/78, p. 68.
2. ↑ The Jackson Browne Signature on gibson.com , accessed May 11, 2012
3. ↑ girlslikeusthemusic.com: Joni Mitchell Biography - 1972 to 1982 (Chapter 14)
4. ↑ rocklopedia.com: Ethan Zane Browne
5. ↑ [1]
6. ↑ 7x7.com: Sonny & the Sunsets Takes Great American Music Hall Tomorrow Night
7. ↑ The 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. Rolling Stone , August 2015, accessed August 7, 2017 . 
8. ↑ http://www.rockhall.com - 500 songs that shaped rock and roll
9. ^ Billboard: Jackson Browne and The Section Honored at NAMM's Annual TEC Awards
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Chart sources: Singles Albums US1 US2 You're a Friend of Mine
11. ^ The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .