Jason Isbell took a notification getting his name wrong in stride. The singer-songwriter joked with fans after the news organization sent out a breaking news alert that misspelled his name. They were reporting on the fact that Isbell had recently given back his Country Music Association membership card. He and his wife voiced frustration due to the lack of tributes to a number of country music legends during the CMA Awards last week.
Isbell responded to a fan who shared a screenshot of the breaking news alert, that seems to be a headline from Fox News.
“Somebody at Fox News been listening to Panic y’all,” he tweeted.
Isbell is referring to Widespread Panic’s guitarist and frontman John Bell. Isbell has played with the band on stage several times in the past.
Why Jason Isbell Returned His CMA Membership
Jason Isbell shared a photo of his and wife Amanda Shires’ lifetime memberships to the organizations with a frank response to the Country Music Association.
“Due to @CountryMusic’s failure to mention John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Billy Joe Shaver at the CMA’s last night, @amandashires and I have decided to return our membership cards. I doubt anybody will care, but we cared a lot about our heroes,” he posted.
He was wrong about no one caring. It’s been headline news ever since. He faces backlash from people who say he’s overreacting as well as those who believe he should have left earlier.
Isbell took the lack of honoring John Prine, who died from the coronavirus earlier this year, personally.
“We were really, really close to John. And Amanda worked with Billy Joe Shaver during her whole career.” Shires confirmed that Prine is the reason she’s in the industry as a songwriter.
Isbell said he also believes that the association intentionally left the artists out of the show. Moreover, he thinks that they wanted the show to be a “drama-free piece of entertainment.”
However, that’s far from what the award show got after the backlash of gathering country music artists, that happened to be mask-free, in a closed-room.