Jubul lee Young is Making a Scene

April 6, 2024

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Making a Scene Brings you an Interview with Jubal Lee Young!

There are generally certain expectations that accompany the careers of any offspring born to famous parents. After all, it’s naturally assumed that the bloodline will assure the gene pool remains intact.

Consider then the anticipation that might greet the son of not one, but two, accomplished individuals. In order to succeed, it takes not only an extraordinary amount of talent, but the ability to demonstrate one’s own talent and tenacity.

That said, credit Jubal Lee Young for taking the lessons from his famous forebears — his father, Steve Young, was an initial inspiration within the outlaw country movement and known for penning the Eagles standard “Seven Bridges Road” and Waylon Jennings’ signature song “Lonesome, On’ry & Mean,”and his mother, Terrye Newkirk who composed the archival originals “My Oklahoma” and “Come Home, Daddy” and was one of the Tulsa Oklahoma contingent that migrated to Los Angeles in the mid ‘60s and made their mark in the music scene there. Early on, it was his mom’s record collection that helped inspire his enduring infatuation with music.

Fortunately, Jubal has made his own mark as an artist of decided distinction. With five exemplary albums to his credit — Not Another Beautiful Day (2006), his self-titled sophomore set (2007), Last Free Place in America (2009), Take It Home (2011), On a Dark Highway (2014), and his spectacular new effort, Wild Birds Warble, his first new effort a full decade — he’s shown himself to be well capable of creating an emphatic sound that sets him apart from any and all artists working within similar realms..

“I need music like I need air and water,” Jubal insists. “I like to explore it and relish the creative process.”

That he does, and given those sentiments, it’s hardly surprising that Wild Birds Warble makes for such a welcome return, one that reestablishes the fact that Jubal is an Americana original in his own right, an artist reared in the roots of a certain ‘60s sound who’s fused that traditional template with actual contemporary credence. Like his dad, he’s a singular individual, an artist who carves his own path forward while infusing his own personal perspective. Yes, he retains that unapologetic outlaw persona — a trait he inherited from his dad — but like his dad, he’s an absolute original who stands firmly on his own footing and makes music that’s emphatic, engaging and decidedly demonstrative besides.

“Here you have one of the finest singers that the Americana genre has produced,” writer Frank Goodman once wrote in a review for the publication Pure Music. He’s got that elusive thing, a sound. When he opens his mouth, what comes out just sounds good.”

Produced, engineered and mixed by Markus Stadler at Bumpin’ Heads Studio in Nashville, and mastered by Alex McCollough at True East Mastering in Nashville, Wild Birds Warble confirms that fact through Jubal’s conviction and creativity. With a select number famously written by his dad (an emotional repay on the classic “Seven Bridges Road,” the expressive and upbeat opener “White Trash Song,” the tangled tapestry that defines “Long Way to Hollywood,” the expressive narrative “Jig,” and the traditional sounding tapestry entwined in “Traveling Kind”) and those by others that influenced him — David Olney, Warren Zevon, Townes Van Zandt, Mickey Newbury, Richard Dobson, and Utah Phillips. The songs are carved from the very fiber of authentic Americana, and the craft and commitment are evident in each of the entries. That tapestry varies from the rugged ramble of “Useful Girl,” “Why You Been Gone So Long?” and “East Virginia” to a remarkably emotional and emphatic take on Townes’ “No Place To Fall” and Zevon’s signature song “Carmelita,” each done in such a way as to make them Jubal’s own.

So too, his own original, the tender “Angel with a Broken Heart,” conveys a sentiment and sincerity that easily finds a fit with the emotional imprint imbued in the album overall.

Set for release on June 28, 2024 through 7Bridges Entertainment, Wild Birds Warble features an outstanding array of support musicians that help realize its highly articulate arrangements. They include Jubal himself (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Markus Stadler (dobro, mandolin, banjo, baritone guitar, vocals), Brian Zonn (bass), Christian Sedelmyer (fiddle), Jeff Taylor (accordion), and Charlie Pate (occasional mandolin).

“We’re all going to be our dreams someday,” Jubal’s often fond of saying, and indeed, the ten years between his last release and the new album were all about persistence and perseverance. After his divorce from his first wife, he found himself a single dad to his 18 month-old daughter Sophie. Then, following the release of On A Dark Highway in September, 2014, he, his daughter, and mother all relocated to a suburb of Tulsa Oklahoma and moved in together to care for his aging grandmother.

Although On A Dark Highway was met with positive reviews, his lack of a promotional budget limited a larger reach. When he and his girlfriend were contacted by the people in charge of casting for the popular network talent program “The Voice,” his partner insisted that they try out. He went along with her wishes, but grew to hate the entire experience. While it benefitted her music school, he knew the viewers of that show were not the audience he wanted to reach.

Nevertheless, they competed through several rounds of competition. It was a source of pride in the fact that they made it so far, but he was also relieved when it came to its inevitable conclusion.

“It was what it was,” he submits. “And once it was over, I was kinda glad to get my regular life back, frankly. For a short while, at least.’

In fact, his ability to resume a regular routine didn’t last long. His father’s accelerating dementia was taking its toll. A few days after appearing on their final episode of “The Voice,” his father fell on some stairs in his home, resulting in a traumatic brain injury. The accident not only had its effect on his father, but also put an end to whatever momentum he might have maintained from being in the public eye. He moved to Nashville to care for his dad and tend to his business affairs, but the injuries his father had suffered proved too much in his already weakened condition, and six months later, he passed away.

The tumult also took a toll on Jubal’s relationship, which eventually led to its break-up. His personal life then went through another upheaval after reconnecting with an old flame which led to a second marriage and divorce. Then, just as he was beginning to believe he could get his career back on track, the pandemic hit. “It wasn’t exactly a horrible thing for me on some levels,” he reflects. “It allowed for a lot of introspection and healing and growing.” Still a single dad, he experienced further loss when his mother and both grandmothers passed away within three years of one another, just prior to the pandemic.

One he emerged from those turbulent times, Jubal knew he needed to find his own place in the music world. “I began to fully grasp the fact that I was caught between multiple realities,” he reflects. “I used to be a part of the Nashville scene, before I moved to Oklahoma. I was really just starting to feel somewhat accepted in the Tulsa scene before ‘The Voice, ‘and for the brief time I was still there afterwards. But having really been gone from Tulsa since 2015, being isolated while being a caretaker, finding myself in a failed marriage, being a single dad and then, like everyone else, dealing with the pandemic, there had been pretty scant opportunities to reconnect with the local Nashville scene. I very much found myself on the outside looking in from everywhere.”

So too, the peer pressure that comes with living in Nashville can be overwhelming at times. Jubal’s never been one to compromise his craft or kowtow to the whims of a fickle music industry.

“I think I went through what I’ve come to call ‘manopause,’” he suggests. “I’ve mellowed while also coming to realize that I’m not a young upstart anymore. I’ve learned to reconcile the fact that certain changes — both physical and mental — were needed in order to sustain myself and move forward to the future. I’m still somewhat in the middle of navigating that. That’s what I have been doing for a decade: navigating. Navigating the ever changing, often stormy seas of life on life’s terms. Never quitting, just shifting focus where it was needed, for as long as it was necessary. Writing, dreaming, planning… none of that ever stopped. I also had to take into account the fact I was pursuing a career as a single father and a caretaker to aging parents, and also trying to strive despite limited resources.”

With his new album, Jubal proves he can succeed, especially on his own terms. I’m happy to stick with the outsiders,” he insists. “And I’ll still get it done.”

“Jubal goes out on the edge and doesn’t just survive, he triumphs,” the late David Olney once wrote. “There is an acceptance of ‘The Great What Is,’ an unflinching attitude that blossoms into a flat-out joy in being alive.”

“God knows it has taken Jubal Lee Young a long enough time to find his roots, but find them he did,” Frank Gutch, Jr. declared in No Depression. “His dad, Steve Young, left them. Jubal is doing just fine…You can hear the ghost of Waylon and Steve at every turn.”

You can also hear an artist who’s clearly come into his own.

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