He chronicles his transformation from a self-professed liability to a sentient being (“Now I’m going back home / It’s down this path I’m led / And I’m no longer empty like the bottle by my bed”).

In “Bottle By My Bed,” Boland reflects on four years of sobriety after coming dangerously close to drinking himself into an early grave. Though many artists evoke Haggard’s name when discussing their influences, few have lived on the edge of destruction like he has, only to come back from that edge with songs that leave the listener with greater insight into the soul of those that struggle against their demons. In the opening track “Sons and Daughters of Dixie,” Boland addresses the struggles and anger of those who lived through Hurricane Katrina, expressing defiance against authority, while affirming the strength and ability of the average person to overcome (“The back shall not be broken of the soul that won’t be killed / If there’s one thing a Southern man knows how to do is to rebuild.”) Boland’s well-known struggles with alcohol make their way into Comal County Blue as well. On his new album Comal County Blue, Boland deals with life, politics and the human experience informed by that Oklahoma tradition and his own personal experience. It is the tradition of Bob Childers, a Red Dirt icon, who learned how to present the forgettable man unforgettably, and it’s the tradition that can be heard in the songs of Jason Boland. It provided the root system for the genius of Merle Haggard. The tradition of that region has produced the music of Woody Guthrie. It’s a place where art meets the everyday life of common America, and it has produced some of the most distinctive American art ever. Between the East and West Coasts, and still a good distance from the third coast of Nashville, is found a place known as the Dust Bowl.

The Devil's Art by Jason Philip Coy