Jackson Browne’s off-grid ranch | Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself

Jackson Browne’s off-grid ranch
by SPY_VONDEGA on SEPTEMBER 1, 2007 - 7 Comments in EVENTS, OFF-GRID 101

Browne: saintly

In his new eco-TV series Ed Begley has just outed singer songwriter Jackson Browne as a long-time off-gridder. Browne, who used to go out with Daryl Hannah, is living on an off-grid ranch in deep Southern California.

“He’s got this big wind turbine, and his ranch is completely off the [power] grid,” Begley said. “He’s done all of it himself.” We’re impressed. But Browne is so cool and unassuming that no further details seem to exist

Browne founded Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) along with Bonnie Raitt back in the 1970s. They put on the very first Live Aid in 1979, though they did not call it that. The all-star series of concerts organized by Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash, John Hall and Jackson in 1979 to benefit MUSE. In addition to serving on the MUSE Foundation Board, Jackson helped edit and compile the 1980 3-LP live album from those shows. No Nukes/The MUSE Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future featured a line-up including Bruce Springsteen, The Doobie Brothers, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Ry Cooder, Chaka Khan, Peter Tosh, and Tom Petty, among many others. The album, which includes Jackson�s “Before The Deluge,” climbed to #23 on Billboard�s pop chart, a considerable feat for a triple-disc collection.

The conventional wisdom is that Browne derailed his career by introducing more political commentary into his songs in the 1980s, but in an interview at his Santa Monica studio, Browne, 55, had a different explanation for his commercial drop-off.

And as a lifelong activist, he has no regrets: “I think those songs that I wrote about specific political things have not only found a place in people’s lives, but they’re also an important part of my life. So I don’t try to second-guess them.”

Jackson grew up in that fertile folk music revival of the ’60s, learning songs by Mississippi John Hurt and Dave Van Ronk and Doc Watson and Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. There was that interplay between learning something and making something up that was a natural environment to begin writing songs. “So I started writing songs when I was about 15. Leonard Cohen and Van Morrison were big influences too. I also read a lot … Steinbeck, Kerouac. Irving Stone. What invariably happened was I would sit down and read, like, two pages of a James Baldwin novel and then go off and write a song, because it was such a potent catalyst. ”

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“I grew up in a time when everybody felt like they were going through something together. I don’t know if kids now feel that way or not. I felt a connection with people. Maybe because I hitchhiked everywhere and I was a hippie. I met people hitchhiking that I would spend two days with — go home with and stay in their houses.

“I didn’t quite know how to write songs on social themes until later, but I grew up singing civil rights songs, songs they would sing at demonstrations and people’s houses. It was what I was reading about; it was what I was thinking about all the time. I think I read three books about the Vietnam War back-to-back one summer when I was touring, and then I read “Salvador” by Joan Didion, and I went, “Oh, my God, it’s 20 years later and the same kind of thing is happening. Policy is being made in secret.” Thought, “This can’t be happening again.” So when I began writing “Soldier of Plenty” and “Lives in the Balance,” I didn’t intend to write political songs. When you write and when you dream and when you imagine, the things are coming through you, they’re coming from what you’re dealing with, and they manifest themselves through playing.

“It’s an odd thing, but life is long, and this music is something you have with you your whole life. It’s a magical thing, because it winds and curves and twists and turns and metamorphoses in so many ways.”

Tags: off-the-grid, celebrity

7 comments

1 Billy Johnson { 12.21.09 at 1:34 pm }: Jackson Browne is the shit. Pure and simple the man has been as asset to the human race. And his music is great to.
2 Jim Jacobson { 01.07.10 at 5:22 am }: Great article. I love Jackson’s music, and appreciate his spirit, yet pretty much disagree with most of his conclusions politically.
He is one of the most gifted singer/songwriters there has ever been.
3 Catherine Todd { 02.14.10 at 11:55 pm }: “When you write and when you dream and when you imagine, the things are coming through you, they’re coming from what you’re dealing with, and they manifest themselves through playing.

“It’s an odd thing, but life is long, and this music is something you have with you your whole life. It’s a magical thing, because it winds and curves and twists and turns and metamorphoses in so many ways.” ”

Browne has put into metalifferous words all that I’ve ever tried to explain about the music that courses through me, all of my life. I call it the “Silver Stream” but Jackson has used it to the benefit of humanity his whole life. I agree with his political stance and with his humanitarianism, and wish I had done 1/2 as much as he has done for the world. Thanks for posting this excellent interview. Quite the eye-opener.
4 Jim Lenahan { 07.26.10 at 2:00 am }: Jackson is who I’d like to be, really. I met one of his brothers, Severin, and he was really cool, too.
Off the grid is where we all should be headed. It’s way late in the game and all this destructive nonsense needs to stop.
5 DEB { 08.23.10 at 1:38 am }: Jackson Browne is one cool guy. Love the man, love the music.
6 Stacey { 11.16.10 at 6:55 pm }: How can you not admire Jackson. I have loved his songs for 30+ years. Have always been moved by his words and music. As a person, he sets the example and I only admire him more. You ROCK JACKSON!!
7 Trish { 01.20.12 at 4:24 pm }: I was looking for a way to write to Jackson Browne, to let him know how much I’ve loved his songs and how much his political views have validated my own. I just downloaded some of my old favorites from iTunes – Road and the Sky, Rock Me on the Water, After the Deluge, and thought about how great it was to be young in the era those songs came out. I live in a cabin in the West Virginia mountains, and 2 years ago found out that the mineral rights to the mountain below me, and the other side of the mountain had been “leased” to a strip mining company. All appeals have been exhausted, and with the local politicians getting “campaign contributions” from that out of state company – the noise, and the pollution of our wonderful water and air, (and the fracking) will soon began. It’s already started in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania and people have filed numerous lawsuits to no avail. Maryland, has refused to be a part of it, to the credit of their governor, Martin O’Malley. This is no hidden hollow, this is a residential community near an urban area, and is only an hour and a half from Washington, but there is absolutely no state government interest in protecting natural resources in West Virginia. With a 9% corporate tax, mining is the primary industry, and most other people work in the service sector for small businesses. My water is so great, so delicious, that I feel like bottling it while I still have the chance.