Jackson Browne has a new album, Downhill From Everywhere, which arrived on July 23, 2021. The release will coincide with the new start date of his U.S. tour with James Taylor. The tour, originally scheduled for summer 2020 was postponed, like all such outings, due to the pandemic. On March 31, the pair announced that it had been pushed back once again. It’s now scheduled to begin on July 29.

In March 2020, Browne revealed that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. At the time, he said he was quarantined and recuperating at his Los Angeles home. The singer-songwriter was interviewed in the April/May 2021 issue of AARP Magazine and was asked about his absence from the stage.

“I really miss contact with an audience,” he says. “I’ve done six or seven virtual shows. And I always think, right up to the moment I’m supposed to stream from my house, that I’m going to be performing to a live audience. It’s good to know that this thing that we love, live music, is waiting for us, that it’s on the other side of this quarantine.”

Watch the video for “My Cleveland Heart,” with a cameo from Phoebe Bridgers

In that AARP interview, Browne talks a bit about his younger days. “I was not popular in high school, but I had a good friend who was. So I got included in lots of stuff: I surfed with a bunch of guys—and we’re all still friends—and I fell into a crowd of musicians. By the time I was 15, I was writing songs.”

Listen to one of the new album’s highlights, “Still Looking For Something”

He shares a story from 1972. “I remember coming home from a gig after my first album was released,” he says. “The girl I was seeing picked me up at the airport and said, ‘Check this out,’ then turned on the radio. And ‘Doctor My Eyes’ was on the radio! And I thought, ‘far out’.”

Related: Our Album Rewind of Browne’s debut LP

Browne has earned six Top 20 singles in his career, beginning with his first, “Doctor My Eyes,” which reached #8 in 1972. Other songs from his classic rock catalog include “Running on Empty,” “Rock Me on the Water,” and “Fountain of Sorrow.” He co-wrote “Take it Easy” with Glenn Frey, which became the first hit for the Eagles.

Browne turned 72 last Oct. 9. He was asked about the process of creating a new album at his age. Downhill From Everywhere is his first since 2014. “It’s harder and harder, because your standards plague you. You wind up trying to write something as good as this other song that you wrote. That’s just death.”

Interview courtesy: AARP THE MAGAZINE, APRIL/May 2021

Downhill From Everywhere Track Listing

Still Looking For Something
My Cleveland Heart
Minutes to Downtown
A Human Touch
Love is Love
Downhill From Everywhere
The Dreamer
Until Justice is Real
A Little Soon to Say
A Song For Barcelona

Listen to “Minutes to Downtown”

Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe spoke to Browne in July and asked him about his early career success.

“I distrusted fame,” said Browne. “I just thought like, don’t think this is going to be the answer to your problems because it’s not. Sure enough. I mean, the things that happened to me were not because I was busy being famous. But honestly, in the long run, I’d say that it’s very hard to grow up in the public eye, hard to make mistakes in public and live in a way that is sort of on display to the world and feel like you have any control. It’s hard to be in control of your own life and your own destiny.”

Lowe asked Browne about the album title, Downhill From Everywhere.

“I realized that downhill has that sort of resonance… is it all downhill from here? And I didn’t have to say that. I didn’t want to say that in so many words, but it actually specifically refers to the fact that the ocean is downhill from all of humanity. It’s really that I got to get to that place where I say that and give that some thought. I mean, there’s a storm drain out in front of my studio, there’s a little stenciled sign on it saying, ‘This drain leads to the ocean.’ So be careful what you put in there. You don’t put anything in there. I mean, LA, every time it rains, no one can go in the water because the runoff is so toxic for a week or so, that you can’t… I mean, all these drains lead to the ocean, whether it’s just bacteria, or whether it’s something like a discarded needle, or some sort of a staph infection, or something like that, it all washes into the ocean, and all that goes regularly into the ocean.”

Listen to the title track from “Downhill From Everywhere”

Tickets for Browne’s tour with James Taylor are available here and here.

Watch Browne’s interview with Zane Lowe of Apple Music 1