Americana singer-songwriter Leslie Jordan spent most of the past few years in writing rooms and nurturing relationships with other artists through her nonprofit creative community, The Fold. After the 2018 conclusion of All Sons & Daughters, the influential Christian worship duo she had been a part of since 2009, Jordan shifted her focus to the stories she wanted to tell.
The first project in this next phase of her career will be released next month. “The Agonist” is a stunning concept album that reconstructs the story of Bobby Gott, a twentieth-century wanderer who abandoned his family to follow the muse on a Kerouac-style journey across the country.
The project was inspired by a box containing decades of Gott’s scattered writings. After his death, the collection of journals, poems and scraps of unfinished thoughts landed on the front porch of Jordan’s mom, the daughter Gott left behind.
I recently spoke with Jordan about her maternal grandfather, the writing process, and “Elegy,” the third album single that was released today. Portions of our conversation have been slightly edited for clarity.
I asked Jordan about her grandfather’s life on the road and whether he ever found community or a sense of connection with others after he left his family. She said, “He spent the first couple of years wandering around and had pockets of friends in Greenwich Village and then in Provincetown, Massachusetts, before ending up in Venice Beach.”
Jordan added, “But I read about that time in his life when he was out there, and I think it began with really wanting to follow the Jack Kerouac thing and to become a beat poet. But when he finally got around those people, he found them insufferable. He really kind of hated them.”
She believes this and his alcoholism are the reasons he spent the rest of his life alone.
Jordan didn’t find out about Gott until around the time her mom received the box of his writings after he died in 1995. Because he had been villainized in the family after his departure, it took time for Jordan’s mom to begin to talk about him as more complex than just the “bad guy who left.”
“I think once she got to that place in her own heart, she was able to bring me into the story,” Jordan said.
In sorting through Gott’s writings, Jordan found a complicated but redeemable figure.
“Through his journals and the stuff she shared with me,” Jordan said, “I could see that he was just really lonely. I think he would have been a great father. He still would have made shitty choices, but I think he would have loved her the best he knew how.”
“The Agonist” is inspired by legendary singer/songwriter concept albums, most notably Willie Nelson’s groundbreaking 1975 project, “Red Headed Stranger.”
The opening track of Jordan’s contribution to the genre introduces Gott as “The Agonist,” a title he gave himself in an early journal. The song also introduces new listeners to Jordan’s haunting vocal style, which is simultaneously strong and delicate–uniquely her own, but with hints of Julie Miller and Mindy Smith. Like the opening number to a Broadway musical, the lyrics portend Gott’s ultimate lot in life: “Insane or just insatiable/ A pilgrim with no place to go/ Our story starts and ends with him alone/ The agonist/ A man without a home.”
Subsequent tracks tell a story of relationships, regret and Gott’s wandering spirit. Like most great roots music, the album is grounded in the particularities of place and time. This is on display in the single “Athensville,” released in February: “He ain’t afraid of dying/ Just dying here/ So you won’t find him standing still/ Like the pines on Sugar Hill/ Where the cemetery’s filled with the ghosts.”
Jordan enlisted the help of Americana mainstays for the album. Sean McConnell and Sandra McCracken have co-writing credits on several songs. Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek) and Brittney Spencer also lend background vocal support.
On the penultimate track, “Elegy,” Jordan, McConnell and Luke Laird, who has penned tunes for Carrie Underwood and Eric Church, took selections of Gott’s writings about his younger brother, Dick, to weave threads from Gott’s childhood with his later life.
Sonically, “Elegy” departs from the acoustic vibes of the rest of the album, taking a more cinematic, movie-score tone. Thematically, it draws on the ancient literary motif of the struggles and blessings of brotherhood to paint a picture of a lonely man taking stock of his life.
Gott wrote about his brother sporadically and somewhat cryptically. After Dick died in a car wreck, which would have also been near the end of Gott’s life, Gott received a box with his ashes.
“I wanted to highlight this relationship on the album,” Jordan said, “because it was one of those that embodied so many of his reflections on his life.”
Jordan added: “You know, we all have family. And, maybe even more so in the past ten years, we’re all figuring out that maybe we don’t have the same beliefs and trajectories and are asking, ‘How do we reconcile that with this path that was paved for us by being blood-related?’ You have this idea of two boys and the diverging paths of their lives. Then, a tragic death leads one to ask, ‘What could have been if we had reconciled?’ It’s a universal story of regret.”
Leslie Jordan’s album “The Agonist” will be released on April 25. “Elegy” is available today on streaming platforms. You can watch the video below.
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Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.
