Courtesy Erika Goldring

About two years ago, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit started having every one of their shows recorded.

So, while the Grammy-winning songwriter's band knew their six-night 2017 stand at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium was being taped, they had no idea that material would end up being a concert album.

"I'm glad I didn't know, actually," 400 Unit drummer Chad Gamble says now, laughing. Gamble thinks this helped the band playing looser and more like themselves, than if they knew they were making "Live From The Ryman," which is being released Oct. 19.

The album spotlights Isbell's progressive-Southerner tunesmithery and 400 Unit's focused, fluid clairvoyance.

"Ryman" opens with the electric clang of "Hope The High Road." Thirteen songs later, it concludes with acoustic melancholy on "If We Were Vampires." Both tracks are from Isbell's 2017 studio disc "The Nashville Sound," the third in the Green Hill native's accolade-garnishing, post-booze album triptych, which also includes 2015's "Something More Than Free" and 2013's "Southeastern."

"It's very musical, the up and down dynamic," Gamble says of "Live From The Ryman."

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Courtesy Erika Goldring

Fans can pre-order the album on black or gold double-vinyl ($30) or CD ($12) via jasonisbell.com/live-from-the-ryman.

"Ryman" arrives six years after Isbell's previous concert disc, 2012's "Live From Alabama," recorded at Birmingham venue WorkPlay and Huntsville's defunct Crossroads Music Hall. Since both live LPs cover three albums each, Gamble considers them "volumes." But he also feels "Ryman" highlights "a broader spectrum on the moods and tones of the songs."

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There are also two key new ingredients added since "Alabama": Sadler Vaden's slicing guitar as a compliment to Isbell's own six-string flourishes, and Amanda Shires' haunting fiddle and harmony vocals. Isbell and Shires collaborate beyond music, too. They wed in 2013 and now have a young daughter named Mercy.

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Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Americana Music Association

The 400 Unit also boasts bassist Jimbo Hart, who's ridden shotgun with Isbell since 2006 (before Isbell's now somewhat forgotten and underrated solo debut "Sirens of the Ditch" was even released), and keyboardist Derry deBorja, the former Son Volt musician who started with Isbell around 2007.

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Robb Cohen/Invision/AP

Issued via the singer's own Southeastern Records imprint, "Ryman" finds Isbell in strong, confident singing voice.

But his guitar playing, particularly on slide, is as eloquent as his much-lauded lyrics.

"He's my favorite slide player, period," says Dave Cobb, who produced Isbell's last three studio albums and mixed "Ryman." I don't know, maybe it's the Muscle Shoals coming out. There's a certain soul and feel and when he plays, it sounds like Alabama to me in the best possible way. It sounds like all the tradition and heart and emotion that is from that region."

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Cobb's favorite concert albums include country legend Waylon Jennings' "Waylon Live" and hard-rock gods Led Zeppelin's "Song Remains The Same," for how they capture onstage alchemy. And function as a snapshot of a band.

In mixing Isbell's "Ryman," Cobb wanted to make listeners feel like they're right there in the audience.

"If you've seen the 400 Unit and Jason live, man, it's an emotional roller coaster," Cobb says. "It will punch you in the face one minute and then it will rip your heart out with another song, so it's really hard to capture than on (a live) album, but I think the band really gave it everything they had on those Ryman dates. And it's all on the record."

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Isbell personally selected which tracks to use and brought the recordings on a hard-drive to Cobb, who mixed them at ITM, the producer's Forest Hills-area Nashville home studio. It felt right to Cobb mix the LP here, since back when he and Isbell first started working together for what became "Southeastern," it was in the back of Cobb's house.

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The emotional and sonic dichotomy of Isbell's recent material makes it difficult to pin down a single essence-distilling performance on "Ryman." It's more about loud-quiet or quiet-loud songs pairings. For example, the short-story as folk-ballad "Flagship" followed by serrated rocker "Cumberland Gap." Or shaggy boogie "Super 8" before the aforementioned "Vampires." Although the band and arrangements are tight, Gamble says within Isbell sets, "we're all able to still find moments where we can add to it. Stretch out a little bit. Nothing's ever completely nailed down."

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Onstage with Isbell, Gamble plays a Gretsch drumkit. When not touring, he resides in Tuscumbia with his wife and his teenage daughter. Gamble's been with the 400 Unit since 2009 but since 2013 Isbell has evolved into a songwriting star who transcends his genre ("Americana," whatever that is) and receives regular Rolling Stone coverage. Still, Gamble says, "There's nothing with our relationship that's changed." Recently he and Isbell, who's been on vacation in Greece, exchanged a humorous thread of texts devising alternative lyrics for certain songs. And if the 400 Unit is on the road during the fall, Gamble and Isbell, both University of Alabama fans, are watching college football together on the bus every Saturday.

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Cobb recently worked with Isbell on the chart-topping "A Star Is Born" soundtrack, which includes actor Bradley Cooper singing Isbell-penned tune "Maybe It's Time." The denim-clad producer also helmed the upcoming Muscle Shoals Sound-recorded studio album by respected Los Angeles rockers Rival Sons.

Gamble is on the tribute album "Muscle Shoals...Small Town, Big Sound," drumming on Shinedown singer Brent Smith's cover of Wilson Pickett's R&B classic "Mustang Sally." He also appears on Gregg Allman guitarist Scott Sharrard's new disc, "Saving Grace," and, along with the entire 400 Unit, singer/songwriter Josh Ritter's next album.

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Recently, Gamble lived a dream sequence when he recorded percussion for soul-singer Al Green's cover of "Before the Next Teardrop Falls," as part of Amazon's "Produced By" series. The session took place at Memphis' Sam Phillips Studios with Isbell engineer Matt Ross-Spang behind the board.

"Al Green walked in the room and sang his heart out," Gamble says, obviously still glowing from the experience. "He was sitting five feet from me when we were going over the tune and just doing the Al Green stuff - hitting those high notes between lines like, 'Hey, baby!' It was absolutely amazing.

"They already had drummer locked down, so I ended up playing congas, which may not sound too glorious, but I knew exactly what they needed for that being such a huge Al Green fan. It just needed that gallop conga sound that you hear on 'Call Me' or 'Let's Stay Together.'" Since Gamble's brother Al Gamble, of Birmingham soul band St. Paul &The Broken Bones, played electric piano on "Teardrop," it made the Green session even more special.

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Courtesy Erika Goldring

So what's next for Isbell and the Unit? Gamble thinks they'll be cutting the next studio record within the next 18 months or so, but that's just his speculation. Isbell hasn't presented new material to the band yet. He never does. "We don't hear it until we're in the studio," Gamble says. "But I know he's constantly working when he can on it."

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Courtesy Erika Goldring

In addition to not having "OMFG, we're recording a live album" pressure in making "Ryman," Isbell and 400 Unit had the luxury of being at the same venue for six straight shows. "Everything's more relaxed when you're doing that stretch," Gamble says. "The opportunity for new problems to pop-up on a daily basis are diminished quite a bit and different from traveling from town to town. 'Oh, this place doesn't have this. We've got to find something for that.' You're home basically just playing in your living room for 2,000 people."

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Isbell and the 400 Unit aren't the type of act to phone-in performances in tertiary markets. Still, like many artists, playing the Ryman Auditorium, a former tabernacle and Grand Ole Opry site, seems to conjure a little more oomph out of them.

"If you think about it," Gamble says, "how many and who all have played in that room versus how many people are trying to get to that room. And here we are doing now six nights a year there. It's mind-blowing. And you feel the history when you're in there, I don't know if it's the wooden pews, the creaking of the floor ... It's just too special."

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Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit "Live From The Ryman" tracklist

1. "Hope The High Road"

2. "24 Frames"

3. "White Man's World"

4. "Flagship"

5. "Cumberland Gap"

6. "Something More Than Free"

7. "The Life You Chose"

8. "Elephant"

9. "Flying Over Water"

10. "Last Of My Kind"

11. "Cover Me Up"

12. "Super 8"

13. "If We Were Vampires"

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File photo/Amy Harris/Invision/AP

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