Live Sessions: Johnathan Rice

Johnathan Rice

On May 10th, Johnathan Rice released his latest LP, “The Long Game.” “This album is an honest look at what it’s like to be in a relationship that’s disintegrating,” says Johnathan Rice. “It was important for me that the songs be unflinching in recognizing my own complicity in that experience, though, because I wasn’t interested in just playing the victim or wallowing in heartbreak. I wanted to paint a 360-degree view of everything that’s wonderfully beautiful and wonderfully sad about love all at the same time.” Hailed by NPR’s World Café as a songwriter capable of being both “wry and brooding,” Rice has always contained multitudes: he signed his first record deal at 19, the same year he made his film debut as Roy Orbison alongside Joaquin Phoenix’s Johnny Cash in Walk The Line; he released three solo records that earned tour dates with artists as varied as R.E.M., Ray LaMontagne, Pavement, and Phoenix; he wrote and produced for a slew of well-known artists and collaborated with everyone from Elvis Costello to Jonathan Wilson; and he even published an acclaimed book of poetry. But Rice’s latest album, ‘The Long Game,’ demonstrates a new kind of range and depth, stripping his songs back to their most elemental selves in order to reveal naked reflections on loss, pain, acceptance, and growth. Written during a time of turbulent emotional upheaval and self-discovery, the collection finds the Scottish-American songwriter’s full-bodied baritone in the spotlight like never before, often relying on nothing more than his deeply evocative voice and poetic grace to conjure up whole worlds of darkness and light. The songs are bold in their austerity, unafraid of empty space and raw vulnerability, and the starkness of the performances enables even the subtlest flourish to land like a hammer. There is no pretense of artifice or affectation here; the lines between singer and song are erased, and for Rice, that’s been a long time coming.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of artist

ncG1vNJzZmikmauytLHSrKCopqNju7G%2BjaipoGeRp8Gqv9OsZqOnmKOutbTAp2SroZOa