Rocker Roots

New Jason Libs albums flows with Evansville nostalgia

Jason Libs left Evansville in the early 1990s, but itโ€™s safe to say the city never left him.

โ€œI was raised where the water ainโ€™t pretty, Iโ€™m from the River City,โ€ the singer-songwriter declares on the title track of his new album, โ€œRiver City Rocker.โ€ It’s available on streaming platforms such as Spotify and YouTube.

Libs, the son of retired chocolatier Mike Libs and retired Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau Director of Marketing and Communications Laura Libs, now lives in Southern California.

His album is a look at his roots โ€” right down to the interludes, which include recordings of a then 9-year-old Libs and a buddy pretending they had their own Evansville radio station. Later voice recordings are of Libs in his late teens and early twenties.

โ€œRiver City Rocker,โ€ Libs explains, โ€œis telling a story of memories, and itโ€™s woven as if youโ€™re turning the radio dial.โ€

Evansville nostalgia flows through the track โ€œGreen River Road,โ€ describing Friday nights of cruising in Trans Ams and Monte Carlos, listening to John โ€œCougarโ€ Mellencamp tunes, and trying to get a cute girlโ€™s phone number.

Jason Libs’ new album, “River City Rocker,” is available on streaming platforms such as Spotify and YouTube.
Album cover photo by James St. Vincent

โ€œI found myself going down the rabbit hole of things you do in the studio โ€” building tracks and doing a record,โ€ Libs says. โ€œGreen River Road popped up when I realized I was telling a thematic story. I started that song as a joke, and River City Rocker was kind of a joke.”

Along the way, though, “I realized this actually has some depth and weight to it,” Libs says, “inspired by the initial tongue-in-cheek approach.”

 

The album is Libs’ first since the 2008 recession sank his independent record label. Life in the following years took him from Nashville, Tennessee, to Barbados, across Europe, and ultimately to California.

โ€œI had a lot invested in the record label and had to start over,โ€ recalls Libs, who describes his music as a fusion of rock, folk, country, and soul. “When I moved out to Hollywood, I had hundreds of songs. My intent was to sell them to other singers or write with other artists and produce them. And work with (Evansville native and eight-time Grammy winner) Philip Lawrence. Weโ€™re old friends.โ€

Libs gained a following in recent years while playing covers and originals at The Red Piano in Santa Barbara, California.

Having a new album released after so many years without one โ€œis a great feeling,โ€ Libs says, adding that even listeners who could not locate Evansville on a map can relate to the coming-of-age experiences described in the lyrics.

โ€œThey had their own Green River Road,โ€ he says.

John Martin
John Martin
John Martin is the Senior Writer at Evansville Living and Evansville Business magazines. The Bowling Green, Kentucky, native joined Tucker Publishing Group, Inc., in January 2023.

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