Jason Wilber’s latest record, Time Traveler, plays like a radio signal emanating from some distant outpost. Folk music from the future, with themes at once timeless and timely. Wilber strums stories from space stations and post-apocalyptic bunkers, alongside down to earth parables on the mysteries and truths of life. Wilber has had plenty of time to ponder the day dreams and fantastic journeys that wind up in his songs. For 24 years he logged countless hours gazing out the windows of planes, trains, busses and cars while on the road with country/folk icon John Prine.
“I was 26 when I started playing guitar with John Prine. During the summer Time Traveler was recorded, I turned 50. I had been playing with John essentially my entire adult life,” Wilber says. “John and his wife Fiona, their boys, the band and crew, they’re like family to me. I love them all, and I loved working with them. It was a special gift to stand beside John all those years and watch what happened between him and an audience. I can’t deconstruct it for you, or explain exactly why it was so brilliant. But I can tell you that something amazing was happening. There’s something about John’s music and his performance of it that touches people deeply. It’s very special, and it was a pleasure and a joy to get to be a part of it for so long.”
In Wilber’s multi-decade journey with Prine, the Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer has graced stages from the Grand Ole Opry to Austin City Limits, Seth Myers & Conan to Letterman & Colbert. And he’s been a key player in high-profile collaborations with a host of legends including Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Todd Snider, Tom Russell, Miranda Lambert, Susan Tedeschi, Josh Ritter, Kacey Musgraves & more.
“Making records, for me, is a process of discovery,” Wilber says. “Often, the song you thought was gonna be great turns out to be ok, and the one you thought was just ok turns into something amazing. And that’s because of all the collaboration—with the producer, with all the other musicians—and also the unknown, the mystery of what’s gonna unfold when you start working on a song. You can never predict what’s gonna happen. So as you go through the process, you have to keep your ears open for the things that are magic.”
The sessions for Wilber’s latest solo LP, Time Traveler, flowed in a familiar work groove. For the third album in a row (after 2016’s Echoes and 2017’s Reaction Time), Wilber worked with longtime friend, producer and Bloomington, Ind., music-scene compatriot Paul Mahern. The latter made his bones fronting seminal punk band Zero Boys before embarking on a brilliant career producing and engineering records by the likes of Iggy Pop, Neil Young and Willie Nelson, as well as more recent luminaries such as Magnolia Electric Co. and Okkervil River. Wilber has known Mahern for more close to 30 years, and the camaraderie is palpable when you listen to their work together.
“Paul and I have a great work rhythm,” Wilber says. “Making music is of course very spiritual and emotional; it’s a creative, artistic activity, but it’s also the kind of thing where you’ve got to show up every day and get things done. You have to put in the hours and get everything down on tape. Paul and I are very efficient in that way. He has great ideas and insights when it comes to arranging and recording. And I always trust him to be honest in his opinions.”
Simplicity and honesty are key ingredients on Time Traveler. The tracks have a decidedly warm, acoustic, almost ’60’s singer-songwriter feel. Wilber layers guitar, mandolin, and percussion, with subtle vocal harmonies. On several songs Susan Anderson and Shannon Hayden, on violin and cello respectively, weave a beautiful atmosphere under and around Wilber’s vocals and guitars. Mahern’s deft production gives a rich analog depth to the tracks. The final effect is stark but elegant, falling somewhere on a spectrum between Peter Rowan’s Dust Bowl Children and a less melancholy Nick Drake.
The opening track “Time Traveler” sets the context for the album. With the rest of the songs dipping in and out at various points in time and space. “Spider” feels the most traditional, which make sense as it’s based on the traditional spiritual song, “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down”. But the “Spider” lyrics speak to 21st century concerns. The spider and the web being metaphors for Big Brother and the internet. At one point in the song Wilber calls on a deified Mother Maybelle Carter to intervene on his behalf, using the power of her iconic autoharp, “If you’re watching over me, please kill this awful beast. Mother Maybelle strum your golden strings.”
“Poet’s Life” shifts gears with a funky rhythm guitar style that Wilber says he learned from former bandmate, and long time Prine-pal, Pat McLaughlin. “Pat has a great funky way of playing acoustic rhythm guitar. I was definitely channelling that on Poet’s Life.” says Wilber. “Poet’s Life” speaks to the shaky ground between melancholy and mania that many artists inhabit, “Somedays I can’t get up, somedays I can’t quit. May be some kind of genius, may be an idiot.” The song is a bit of a nod to another friend of Wilber’s; Kurt Vile. “I had Kurt’s lyrical style in mind when I was writing Poet’s Life for sure, but also his personality. Kurt is like John Prine in that his personal eccentricity comes through in his music in a really great authentic way. That’s a pretty fantastic and rare thing.”
Another Time Traveler highlight is “The Disappearance of Bigfoot,” a hypnotic, fingerpicked tale which seems to be a cautionary comment on mankind’s relationship with nature. The song tells of Bigfoot’s near miss encounter with Little Foot, who is “almost bald with tiny feet, that’ll kill the bear and just leave the meat.” A creature that Bigfoot (who is female by the way), regards as surely fictional, “That Little Foot’s just a backwoods myth. Something to scare baby squirrels with. There ain’t no creature could be so dumb and selfish.”
The latest addition to an ever-deepening catalog that includes Lost In Your Hometown (1998), Behind the Midway (2000), King For A Day (2004), Lazy Afternoon (2006), Ghost of Summers Past (2009), Secret Window (2014) Echoes (2016), and Reaction Time (2017), Time Traveler is Wilber’s 9th solo record, and sure to be considered one of his finest.
“I saw a great exhibit in Seattle a few years back,” says Wilber, considering his feelings on the new album and his career going forward. “It was this famous Japanese woodblock artist, Katsushika Hokusai, who’d done a series of prints, many of them of a great wave, and some had Mt. Fuji in the background. He’d been an artist his whole life, and he did that series when he was in his 80s, and that became the work he was known best for. I just think that’s fantastic—that you can be an artist your whole life, and end up doing your best work in your 80s.”
Time Traveler was released May 29, 2020. You can check out Wilber’s previous release Reaction Time here.
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Background Biography:
Jason Wilber is an American singer, guitar player, songwriter, and recording artist. In addition to his work as a solo recording artist, he is also known as the long time lead guitar player for singer-songwriter John Prine. Other artists Jason has accompanied live or in the studio include Iris Dement, Greg Brown, Tom Russell, Sheryl Crow, Mary Gauthier, Todd Snider, Simrit, Hal Ketchum, Tim Grimm, Krista Detor, Greg Trooper, Carrie Newcomer, Kim Fox, Bill Wilson, and Over the Rhine.
Jason Wilber’s solo albums include Lost In Your Hometown (1998), Behind the Midway (2000), King For A Day (2004), Lazy Afternoon (2006), Live and Otherwise Volume 1 (2006), Ghost of Summers Past (2009), Live and Otherwise Volume 2 (2009), Secret Window (2014), Echoes (2016) and Reaction Time (2017).
Jason Wilber’s work with John Prine includes the Grammy Award winning CD Fair & Square, and the Grammy nominated CDs Live On Tour, In Spite of Ourselves (which spent 32 weeks on the Billboard Country Charts), and Prine’s final album Tree of Forgiveness. In addition to playing guitar on John Prine’s 2017 album For Better or Worse, Jason also served as a Co-Executive Producer. Jason has accompanied John Prine on duet recordings with Iris Dement, Allison Krauss, Susan Tedeschi, Emmylou Harris, Miranda Lambert, Kathy Mattea, Amanda Shires, Fiona Prine, Lucinda Williams, Josh Ritter, Patty Loveless, Lee Ann Womack, Connie Smith, Melba Montgomery, Morgane Stapleton, Kacey Musgraves, and Sara Watkins.
From 2006-2016, Jason Wilber hosted the syndicated radio series, In Search of a Song, which featured long form interviews with singers, songwriters, musicians, and producers.
Jason Wilber served as C0-Executive Producer on the compilation CD Coal Country Music featuring Willie Nelson, Gillian Welch, Ralph Stanley, Jason and the Scorchers, Kathy Mattea, Justin Townes Earle, Natalie Merchant, Diana Jones, Tom T. Hall, Bonnie Raitt, John Prine, Jean Ritchie, and other artists, who all contributed their talents to benefit the Alliance for Appalachia’s work to stop Mountain Top Removal in rural Appalachia.
Jason Wilber’s past TV and radio appearances include The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Colbert Report, Sessions At West 54th Street, The Grand Ole Opry, Live with Regis and Kathy Lee, CNN Entertainment Week, The Road, Mountain Stage, E-Town, Austin City Limits, and The Late Show with David Letterman.
For media resources see the Jason Wilber Media Kit.
