Jackson Browne- Late for the Sky 50th Anniversary

Late for the Sky by Jackson Browne was released September 13, 1974. Do you realize from what kind of place a songwriter has to come to show his or her inner soul, the Big Ta Dah, with the opening song on side one? That is precisely the confidence, the certainty, the clarity Jackson Browne exhibited forty years ago by insisiting boldly that the achingly beautiful title song to his third highly-awaited album Late for the Sky be sequenced right up front. As the refrain fades out with David Lindley’s plaintive guitar licks over Jackson’s piano, for my money Browne could have taken a bow right there, with the rest of the excellent songs such as “Fountain of Sorrow”,””The Road and the Sky”,”For a Dancer”, and “Farther Along” serving as encores. No less than Bruce Springsteen himself called Late for the Sky “Jackson Browne’s masterpiece.”

Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky is Exhibit “A” for any discussion of what the evolving recorded music, concert touring, and evolving radio businesses were becoming fifty years ago. There were no Top Forty singles off of Late for the Sky, yet the album went to #14 on Billboard sales, certified platinum for over a million in sales. Rolling Stone magazine ranks it #377 on its Top 500 Albums of All Time. To spotlight the album’s fiftieth anniversary, Jackson Browne joins me here In the Studio. -Redbeard