FEATURED ARTIST OF THE MONTH

Since his 1985 debut album, Silvertone, Chris Isaak has released a stream of great records. Like its predecessors, Isaak's twelfth CD, Mr. Lucky, channels the spirit of older music—there are hints of rockabilly, surf, country, and Texas swing; touches of bachelor-pad pop and old-time yodel music; and warm Hawaiian vibes. Stir and shake and add Isaak's uncanny ability to write catchy, hummable songs, and, of course, add that otherworldly voice of his, and you have bottled one unique, very pleasing, concoction.

We conclude that Chris Isaak is freakishly talented. Here are some ways we prove this argument:

* The late, great Sam Phillips—you know, the guy with the elephant ears who picked out Elvis Presley, Howlin' Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, and so many others we still care about—was asked (in a 2000 interview with The Oxford American) if there were any modern recording artists who grabbed his attention. He replied, "I don't keep up with the business like I used to, but I love to listen to Chris Isaak. He's very talented, and his music is damned honest. It's incredible." No average human could've earned that kind of praise from Sam Phillips. Sam Phillips would not have praised Joe the Plumber like that. You had to be a freak to earn Sam Phillips's okay.

* The song "Wicked Game." It's a masterpiece. It's going to endure. It's going to be sung long after Chris Isaak has stopped singing it. A song like "Wicked Game" needs freakish talent to be made; it was not made by accident. Just as "A Day in the Life" and "Sympathy for the Devil" were not accidents. Just as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Ring of Fire" were not accidents.

* He managed to be funny (on June 2) on Chelsea Handler's painfully superficial talk show. He arrived onstage with a small traveling guitar. She: "Is that a guitar? It looks a little little." He: "As I sing, it becomes larger." Later, she: "You should focus on getting a regular-sized guitar." He, lifting up the small guitar: "It makes me look bigger."

* He has yet to make a bad record.

* That includes Chris Isaak Christmas from 2004. In fact, Chris Isaak Christmas is one for the ages. Not only do his covers of the usual suspects ("Rudolph," "White Christmas," etc.) re-engage the listener, but Isaak also wrote a handful of instant classics, including "Washington Square," "Hey Santa!," and, especially, "Christmas on TV." Come on. How many contemporary artists do you know who could write Christmas songs that could please both you and your parents?

* His voice. A voice that can murmur and growl in the deep end and then instantly move to the highest levels to pierce like a laser beam through glass. In our interview with him (below), Isaak says that he has to struggle to write songs and because of that he says he is as far from a genius as you can get. But later on, it hit us: Does he struggle to sing the way he does? Or does his voice just come out naturally, as if released from some genie bottle? We forgot to ask. But Elvis didn't write songs, so when we call him a genius, a freak, it's because whenever he sang he seemed to immediately penetrate to the truths and heart of a song, and he seemed to go farther or deeper than most people go when singing pop music. We usually feel the same way about Isaak's singing, and we think that's freaky.

Our interview with Chris Isaak took place on June 3, 2009, as the subject was driving to San Francisco from Los Angeles. Between the subject's cellphone and our speakerphone, there was a lot of static and a very thin, tinny sound. But three or four times, to make various points, Isaak sang bits of old country songs to us. Because the tunes were old to begin with, and because he was singing a cappella through static and a speakerphone, when he sang it sounded like his voice was coming out of a scratchy 78 rpm record.

And yet, he sounded good.

—The Editors.

CHRIS ISAAK: This is one of the interviews I look forward to doing. The Oxford American is something I read, and I don't read much. It gets passed around the tour bus until it's dog-eared. You get as much about music in one article in your magazine as in five years of Rolling Stone.

THE OXFORD AMERICAN: You better watch it. We are writing down what you say.

CI: I don't care. I mean it. Your music coverage is about more than just this week's top hit. What is interesting to me is: What about the B-sides? What about Aretha Franklin's sister? When you get on a tour bus with real musicians, they're not talking about this week's hits or who sold the most records. They are talking about this kind of stuff. My brother used to have a quote from a cartoon—showing a bunch of flies sticking to a pile of shit: "If they eat shit, 50,000 flies can't be wrong."

THE OA: Aw, now you are making us blush. Why does music mean so much to you?

CI: I'm not sure. But I think growing up broke in tough times, music was a way of making the world seem like a warmer place.

THE OA: For a long time, we have enjoyed your high notes. Apparently, you don't believe in studio trickery. The first time we heard you live you held the high note at the end of the ballad "Lie to Me" for what sounded like three hours. Do you have a philosophy for high notes, when you use them, when you don't, etc.?

CI: It's something I can do pretty naturally and I love to hit them because it's fun to sing loud and go up high—to play around with my range. One time I asked Roy Orbison about his high notes and he said: "People think I sing high, but I really just start low."

THE OA: We also enjoy your occasional forays into falsettos (the plural of which, as you know, is falsetti). How do you know when a song needs a falsetto part?

CI: I love singing falsetto; it's just so much fun. I love the country singer Marty Robbins and his early stuff when he used to do Hawaiian songs. [Chris starts singing a song that we can't readily identify, but it's really good.] When I first heard it I thought: I gotta learn this because it's so pretty. I sang it so much that my neighbor came over and said, "What's the name of that Hawaiian record you're always playing?" When I said it was me, she didn't believe me.

But some of my favorite songs that I've written aren't hard to sing. I kind of like those—I'll think: Even when I get to be really old, I can sing those tunes.

THE OA: One of our favorite falsetto performances is Mick Jagger on the song "Emotional Rescue." What are some of your favorites?

CI: Slim Whitman. People act like he's a big joke, but at one time, he sold more records than the Beatles. When I hear singers I really love, they immediately make me want to sing. [Chris sings again. We wish we could describe what it sounds like hearing him a cappella and bursting over flimsy speaker-phone technology.]

THE OA: When you think of high notes and falsettos you don't immediately think of...ex-boxers. Yet that's exactly what you are. Do you think one reason you boxed was because you wanted to prove to yourself that real men can reach the high, pretty notes?

CI: When I was first boxing, no one knew I sang. My dad boxed in prison and I had two older brothers who boxed. But macho-wise, I don't give a damn. People probably look at me and say, "Hmm.... Hollywood actor? Never been married?...." I'm the least macho guy in the world but I couldn't give a rat's ass. To me, macho is: pay your bills, raise your family....

THE OA: Yeah, but do you think your opponents would've hit you harder if they knew you sang falsetto?

CI: There's a great line in an old Gene Autry song: "He was shot at his piano / When they found him, he sang soprano."

THE OA: Not that you are all that old, but has aging affected your voice for good or bad?

CI: So far, I think I've got a little more on the bottom end...but that's it. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life or done dope, and being healthy has, I think, helped my voice.

THE OA: Is there an identifiable "Chris Isaak sound"? If so, please describe what that sound is to you?

CI: Well, when you are in the trees, you can't tell you are in a forest, right? But for me it's the voice being on top...and the way that there are minor chords in the midst of a pretty sound.

THE OA: One of the highlights of Mr. Lucky is your duet with Trisha Yearwood on "Breaking Apart." [You can hear the song "Breaking Apart" at the end of this interview.] That song appeared a decade ago on your Speak of the Devil album and reminded us that you are one of the few artists who is not gun-shy about re-recording his earlier work. We're glad you do this, but why do you do it?

CI: If I think I can do something interesting and different with a song, I'll do it again. Trisha and I had done "Breaking Apart" for a show and she sounded so good that it was an improvement on the original. This will sound boring on paper but: She. Is. An. Amazing. Singer. If I had her in my house like Garth Brooks does, I would sing with her every day.

THE OA: That's a trumpet on the new song "We've Got Tomorrow." Is there any instrument that you've been dying to make room for on a song but haven't found the right excuse to use just yet?

CI: Yes, there's all kinds of instruments.... I love clarinet. I don't know a lot of clarinet players but I'd love to throw it in somewhere. It's a great sound but it doesn't cut through—the drum and bass take up a lot of space. It's real pretty, like a voice.

THE OA: Is there a song of yours that you thought for sure would be a big hit and wasn't? (We'll answer this first: Every time we hear "Wrong to Love You" we are shocked to remember that it was NOT an international hit.)

CI: I don't think I ever thought about which songs would be a hit...but I often thought that "Forever Blue" would be a good song for someone to cover. It has pretty lyrics and the melody is easy to sing. It would be good for a soul singer or a country singer. I always wanted Rick Nelson to sing "Back on Your Side" but he passed away. I always pictured Rick Nelson doing that song even better than me.

THE OA: Conversely, was there a song of yours that you didn't think was going to be a hit but ended up being one?

CI: "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" and "Wicked Game." It's funny but everything that became a hit was in spite of the record companies. For me, it's hard to know which song will become a single. Like most parents, I love all my kids.

THE OA: We notice that when you do "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" live you twist it all out of shape and at times it sounds utterly different from the original—as if the original doesn't quite hold your interest.

CI: I don't think we're running away from the original, we're just making it longer. It's fun to play live—it's got a simple format—because you can make a party out of it. It's a rock & roller so you can do that; love songs you can't do that with.

THE OA: Your most famous song—"Wicked Game"—is, arguably, also your best song. It's one of those rare songs—"Satisfaction," "Louie Louie," "Stayin' Alive," etc.—that no matter how many times we listen to it, never sounds stale!!! And we listen to it a lot. What about performing "Wicked Game"—do you ever tire of playing and singing it or does it hold the same power over you as it does listeners?

CI: Whenever I'm playing at my house, I only play new songs. But I'm always happy to play "Wicked Game" onstage. It's fun because people want to hear it. I've written a lot of songs that are goofy and weird—I have a lot in a box under my bed—silly songs, novelty songs—that I don't put on records....

THE OA: What is your favorite line in a song that you've written?

CI: There's a happy line in one of my new songs. "A simple plan is all we'll do / You count on me, I'll count on you." I'd asked my parents about relationships and they said: You have a really simple plan—you just don't leave.

THE OA: Is that the same as just locking the doors?

CI: Ha. Probably.

THE OA: What is the weirdest comment or request you have ever heard from a fan?

CI: I've had strange requests—but not about the music. Hmm...a guy did come up to me after a show and say, "I want to sing with your band—because I know if I could sing with them, I would sound great." And he was right—people don't realize how much fun it is to sing with a good band. I'm getting paid to sing with them, but I have rehearsals with them just so I can do it.

THE OA: What is the wisest thing a fellow musician has ever said to you?

CI: Roy Orbison said to me, "Even when a song is very sad, you always want to have some hope in it."

THE OA: Is there a song that you've been dying to cover but for whatever reason just haven't yet?

CI: "Killing the Blues," a song by our bassist Rowland Salley. Alison Krauss [with Robert Plant] has done a version. I've been wanting to cover it for years.

THE OA: What is the hardest thing about making music?

CI: To find people who hear a song the way I hear it. It's about the band—finding those guys makes it all easy, guys who hear the music the way I hear it. When I inducted Bob Wills into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I used a quote from him. He had said to his band: "Let's all buy houses on the same street so that when we retire we can all get together and play music."

THE OA: What is the harshest criticism you've ever received?

CI: I've never read a review in my life and wouldn't—though I appreciate the coverage—because they can either say something nice, which will inflate my head, or something not nice, which depresses me. I listened to, and acted on, criticism from Erik Jacobsen, who produced my first records.

THE OA: Keith Richards has spoken of how the riff to "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" came to him, literally, in a dream and that if he hadn't woken up in the middle of the night and put on the tape recorder, he would have never remembered it. What's the strangest way a song has come to you?

CI: I wrote "Dancin'" [the first song from his first album] in the shower, slapping the beat on my leg. "Lie to Me" came to me in a bar in Holland. I got on stage and asked somebody to write down what I was doing. I wrote that one on the spot. I've written some things in the studio and I wish I could do that every time. But most of the time, songwriting is like homework: Like trying to find what rhymes with "June." Sometimes the first two verses come easy and then the third one is hard. But I'd never just sit there and wait for it to come. It's like fishing, if you want to catch a fish, you've got to put the bait on the hook and then the line in the water. To write songs, you've got to get your songbook and your guitar out—and work. You got to keep writing—write through the bad ones. You need to write a lot of bad songs to get the good ones. Most songwriting is like doing a card trick...sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Paul McCartney and John Lennon are sickening because everything they write is good. The rest of us just have to keep writing.

Once in a while it comes to you easy, but more often it doesn't. Anyone who uses the word "genius" ain't talking about me. I work for every inch of ground I've got.

Anyone who starts off writing bad songs is on the right track; keep writing bad ones and eventually a good one will come.

THE OA: Somebody who judged you by your records—all those songs about heartbreak and cryin' and lost love—might think your live shows would be downers. In fact, they are among the funniest shows we've seen. Yet humor, for the most part, is absent from your records. Is this a conscious choice—or do you get serious when there's a song to sing?

CI: I'm more serious about the music. Most of my songwriting takes place at night. I'm serious at three in the morning. I think things like: What's going to happen to all my stuff when I die, who's going to get my guitar? For me the only answer to these dark questions is: You gotta balance it out. Yes, we're here, we don't know why, but in the meantime there's a big wide wonderful world.

THE OA: The career of the Hawaiian shirt has been a strange one. In the 1950s it was hot, in the '60s lukewarm, and then basically neglected till the mid to late '80s. Now, for some, the H. shirt is complete anathema. I heard one girl say, without any sort of hesitation, that she would never date a guy who wore a Hawaiian shirt. As someone who used to live a good portion of his life in Hawaiian shirts, what is your current thinking on the subject?

CI: I couldn't care less what fashion dictates! If you look at the people who are dictating fashion, do you really want to be like them? Like some guy in Milan? If you do, then you're a damn ninny—a nincompoop! You gotta wear what's comfortable, what you like. I hope all those people who hate Hawaiian shirts throw out all of their Hawaiian shirts so that I can wear them.

THE OA: Is it relatively easy for you to finish songs that you've written or are you haunted by incomplete songs on your computer and hidden away on old cassette tapes?

CI: I've got a lot of songs, but it has to have a melody that sticks with me. If it sticks with me, then I figure it will stick with the public. It's strange, but sometimes I don't know what month it is and I never know the day, but if I hear a melody I like, I can hear it forever. And if I hear dialogue in a movie that I like, I can remember it forever. In the Warner Bros. offices, they used to have musical codes to their locks. I could get into all the different offices just because I remembered the musical codes. Not the best security system for a record label....

THE OA: So many of your songs are about girls who've broken your heart. Is this just a songwriting zone you get into or do you spend a lot of time thinking about girls who've broken your heart?

CI: Not really that many girls. There's been one or two. I guess I'm romantic. I still think about my first love affair; that early love affair still means a lot. This little five-foot Asian girl once told me: "Be a man, stop whining!" But it's my way of singing the blues, I guess. There's a Brother Dave Gardner quote that works for me: "The worst I ever had was wonderful." The women in my life were smart, funny, cool—they were all wonderful women. I'm glad they were in my life.

THE OA: Not counting the new album or any song on it, what's your favorite Chris Isaak album and song?

CI: My favorite song is probably "Forever Blue" because it really told about what was going on in my life at the time. It was like a letter to my ex-girlfriend. Her attorney said I couldn't contact her so I wrote the song hoping she would hear it on the radio while she was shopping. My favorite album? Forever Blue for the same reasons. I wanted her to hear it.

THE OA: Who are some of the older bands or singers you listen to a lot?

CI: Connie Francis. She's so underrated. She's a pop singer who is denigrated now as "white-sounding." And Pat Boone. People put him down all the time. "Love Letters in the Sand" is beautiful. So is "Sugar Moon." At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, someone I won't name said: "I never listen to Pat Boone, he's crap blah blah" and I thought, how dare you rag him? He did his thing and it was beautiful. Howlin' Wolf did his thing and it was beautiful, too. They're just different.

Also Nino and April. They did "Deep Purple." That was a song I picked up at a second-hand store when I was a kid and I played it and played it. Once, Phil Spector had me come for a possible recording session and there was Nino Tempo playing sax! I couldn't believe it!

And the Everly Brothers. I can't believe they're still walking this world. I met them once. They were the greatest harmony singers of all time. I'd love to see them perform together again.

THE OA: By the way, have you ever wanted to act in a Western?

CI: Who hasn't? Seriously, if anyone has a horse and they want me to ride, I'd say, Sure!

THE OA: Are there any ways in which the "retro" tag you get is both accurate and inaccurate?

CI: I sound retro to people because I have vocal weight on top and sound pretty. But my thoughts are all about my life and I never saw anything retro about my life.

THE OA: I've heard country songs that sound less country than some of your work. Has it ever crossed your mind that some Isaak songs would fit on a country radio station?

CI: I'm a huge country fan—early country—Hank Snow, Hank Thompson, Hank Williams, the Everly Brothers. They probably wouldn't get played now. Early country is where my roots are. Modern country is soft pop. I love listening to hardcore '40s and '50s country. The best country writer now is Dwight Yoakam. People will realize in the future that he was on a level with Hank Williams. He has the best lyrics—he's a heavyweight.

THE OA: You get compared to Elvis a lot. Whether or not that is accurate, we thought it was pretty doggone surreal when Lisa Marie Presley opened for you a few years back in Memphis, Tennessee. What memories do you have of that show? And: If that wasn't your most surreal gig, what was?

CI: It was a great experience. She's a very sweet girl. As I told my band, if I was Elvis's kid, I'd of probably lost the use of legs from being carried around. But she's actually out there working. Some people treat her like the daughter of Jesus. People, fans, who are almost scary, go to her and say, "Touch my hand!"—that's gotta be heavy. But as far as surreal? Playing with Scotty Moore? Freaky. Meeting Roy Orbison at his house? Writing songs with Roy Orbison? Freaky. Talking with Carl Perkins? Blew my mind. Meeting Jerry Lee Lewis? Freaky. My life is like all the things I dreamed of doing when I was a kid.

THE OA: We just learned that your hometown of Stockton, California, now has the worst crime rate in America. How has Stockton changed from when you grew up there?

CI: It was a smaller town, but it was always a rough town. It had a tough skid row and a lot of boxers and drunks. Things have gotten even tougher. They now have a new class of drugs—they used to get drunk, but now they're using speed and meth which keep you up for days so it's more dangerous. But I go to Stockton all the time and no one is stabbing me and I'm not carrying a gun.

THE OA: What are some things you learned from your father?

CI: It wasn't till later in life that I realized I had wanted my dad to be more like Ward Cleaver. My dad was an ex-convict, a boxer, a tough guy, and he drove a beat-up Plymouth he'd painted with a broom. And back then I knew we stood out—but not in a good way. Later, I realized my dad was soulful—there was even soulfulness in his record collection: he listened to Leadbelly, Hank Williams, Elvis, Fats Domino. When I got my first gold record, my dad was crying. He never cried. He said: "Now you're on a level with Fats Domino." I'm not nearly as good as Fats Domino but to my dad, Fats Domino had gold records, so....

THE OA: In what ways do you act like a rock star? If you'd rather not answer this question, would you please ask one of your bandmates to give us a response?

CI: When I go to a restaurant and I want to get a good seat, I say, Tell 'em Chris Isaak and Tom Cruise are coming. And when I show up, I say, "Where's Tom?" One of these days, Cruise is going to come up to me and say, "Stop using my name!"

THE OA: You are playing the Ryman Auditorium in July. What is it like playing there?

CI: It's like going to the Vatican. You know Stonewall Jackson? [Isaak sings what is undoubtedly a Stonewall Jackson song. And this time the reception is particularly flush with static and Isaak sounds like a singer on an old 78 record. It's great—and freaky.]. Stonewall Jackson's a great singer and when we played one of his songs at our show, he came over the next day and said hello to me. You can't beat that.

Hear this! "Breaking Apart" by CHRIS ISAAK (with TRISHA YEARWOOD):

(To order Mr. Lucky, please click here.)

Because there are so many compelling songs and performances on Chris Isaak's Mr. Lucky, we were hard-pressed to decide which track to stream for you. We very tempted to share "Best I Ever Had," which is another in a long run of ridiculously catchy Chris Isaak songs. And we love "Big Wide Wonderful World," a colorful but moody ballad (which features our favorite lines on the record: "Look at the sky / sky just got bluer / Look at those eyes / they're calling me to her"). In the end, we chose "Breaking Apart," his duet with Trisha Yearwood, to spring on you. It's a tune he's recorded before, but not as a duet.

Chris Isaak can break your heart with the sheer melancholic beauty of his songs.

There are worse ways for such damage to occur.