Who turns down a personal offer to play keyboard on Paul McCartney's world tour? Gabe Dixon did, and it was probably the best decision of his life. Dixon respectfully turned McCartney down to focus his energies on his band's then-yet-to-be-released album.

The first incarnation of The Gabe Dixon Band was born nine years ago as a jam band with heavy jazz influences, but after a bout of cutbacks and regime changes at their original label, the band members had a collective epiphany and decided to reinvent themselves as a song-based trio. A reviewer for The Nashville Tennessean, Dixon's hometown paper, called it early in 2005 when he stated unequivocally that the young artist "deserves to join the ranks of Jackson Browne and early Elton John in the pop pantheon."

The Gabe Dixon Band cut their self-titled album live at Nashville's renowned Blackbird Studios with co-producer/ engineer mixer Neal Cappelino (Alison Krauss, Mindy Smith, Jonny Lang). Dixon wrote all songs on the album and received a little help from heavyweights like Dan Wilson, Grammy winner for his work on Dixie Chicks' "Not Ready To Make Nice." The album embeds vividly detailed, intensely personal and universally relatable songs in elegant yet muscular settings that draw, unabashedly and expertly, on classic rock, and the combination is intoxicating.

Of the newfound song focus of his onetime jam band, Dixon says, "We love great songs and real musicianship, and we take time as a band to come up with something that isn't typical, because the arrangement and performance can be just as impactful as the song itself. We've become more refined, and to the point, making the impact direct and immediate. The idea is pretty simple, really: We're dedicated to playing music people like that we like too."