“The old George Harrison trick… it works every f**king time” Jason Isbell admits he stole a guitar technique from the Beatle for one of his most famous songs
If you’ve ever been hypnotised by the gleaming slide guitar work on Jason Isbell’s 24 Frames, there’s a good chance you’ve got George Harrison to thank for it.
As it turns out, the 2015 Isbell classic borrowed a page straight from the Beatle’s playbook – a studio trick the guitarist says “works every fucking time”.
Speaking to The Sun ahead of his UK and Ireland tour with The 400 Unit, Isbell reflects on the ideas behind some of his best-known songs, including the guitar parts that give the Grammy-winning 24 Frames its unique feel.
“I may have doubled up two exact same slide-guitar parts on that,” he says. “It’s the old George Harrison trick from My Sweet Lord and it works every fucking time.”
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For Isbell, that fascination with guitar started early. Looking back on his childhood as the son of teenage parents, Isbell says music was simply everywhere around him growing up.
“Though my dad and mom didn’t play music, pretty much everybody else in my family did, at least as a hobby. It was seen as a birthright thing,” he explains.
“I got to spend a lot of time with my grandad, who preached in a Pentecostal church in Alabama, and played guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo. And my uncle, my dad’s little brother, played guitar in a rock band.”
“When I was around four, my parents would take me to band practice in his friend’s garage, and I would fall asleep, usually when they did Neil Young’s Like A Hurricane,” Isbell adds.
“I know this sounds like down-home Southern horseshit, but my grandad would make me play gospel music with him for a couple of hours a day. Then if I could get through it without getting lazy, I could play rhythm guitar. The guitar was huge, and I was small, and it would take a lot of work.”
Today, despite being one of modern Americana’s most celebrated musicians, Isbell admits he still treats guitar playing as a “hobby”.
“My girlfriend paints very seriously and that’s her work,” he says. “Lately she started working with miniatures and building doll houses, and that’s her hobby. It’s very close to painting but it’s not a commercialised part of her life.”
“That’s how I look at guitar playing. Singing, songwriting, touring – that’s my job. If left alone for a couple of hours, I just sit and play guitar – that’s my hobby.”
And when it comes to writing new material, Isbell says he has one oddly specific goal in mind: “When I’m writing a record, I think, ‘How am I going to make these people hold their pee for four more minutes?’
“Because when the new material comes out, that’s usually when everybody heads to the bar!”
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