The Packway Handle Band likely had no idea just how wild a trip they were packing for when they asked fellow Georgian Jim White to produce their album, but before they knew it, Take It Like a Man was a full-on collaboration by a conjoined entity known as Jim White vs. the Packway Handle Band. Yep Roc Records will unleash the result on January 27, 2015; White and the band will celebrate by unleashing their anything-but-traditional bluegrass sound at fine establishments throughout the South.

Word of their unorthodox union is already being heralded with pronouncements such as this one from No Depression, hailing the album as “a joyous collision of styles that adds a bit of ‘edge’ and some pretty cool melodies to this straight-laced music.”

Uncut magazine named it “Best American Album of the Month,” citing, “Like most everything White does,Take It Like a Man is a discourse that demands attention." MOJO also declared it “Americana Album of the Month,” calling it :haunting and literate, almost unbearably beautiful.”

It came about when the Athens quintet learned their producer had a massive stash of bluegrass-inspired songs just waiting to be flung on the world — and had decided they would make the perfect slingshot. “When I’d heard ’em play a couple of years earlier,” White says, “I muttered under my breath, ‘I wish I could have that much fun playing music.’ When they offered me the chance to produce, I thought, ‘How can I undermine this?’” 

Describing the album as “a synthesis between their zany bluegrass sound and my long-suffering, implosive-depressive novelist view of the South,” White says it fulfills his “conniving goal to become a happy bluegrass man.”

Sounding like an ivory-tower academic one minute and a stand-up comedian the next, he says “versus” addresses the “conflagration of opposing mindsets” as an answer to the question, “What happens when we throw these two unlikely elements together?”

Though he claims it took some wrangling to make his devious plan work, Packway guitarist Josh Erwinassures no punches were thrown. In fact, the band sought White’s involvement precisely because they felt the need for objective guidance. After a decade plus of playing their brand of  “apocalyptic infotainment” together, the five players — four of whom have been connected since high school — wanted to branch out. Exposed to White’s eclectic music via a Texas DJ at the 2006 Burning Man festival, they became fans after viewingSearching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, the BBC documentary inspired by and taking its title from his 1997 debut album, The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

While producing the Skipperdees’ 2013 album Some Bright Mourning, White needed a bluegrass band and called the Packways. A good time was had by all. They decided to tap him for their next project. “He directed the concept,” Packway fiddler Andrew Heaton explains. “He went through our songs, and with some needed frankness, told us which ones he thought would and would not work. And after he provided us with 20 of his, we told him which ones we were going to do. So he had the majority of the say on our numbers and we had the majority of the say on his.”

The album alternates White and Packway compositions; only one track, the campy bluegrass rave-up “Corn Pone Refugee,” is a co-write (by White and Erwin). 

Despite the “versus” construct, Take It Like a Man is indeed about connecting, White says. “The whole point with anything artistic is to unify, to draw together,” he notes. “I try to do that with every project, and often the long shots are the most interesting propositions.

“One of the most beautiful qualities I love about bluegrass is its simplicity,” White says. “It’s incredibly elaborate moment to moment, but the overall arc is usually really simplistic. It’s more about the quality of the voice than the virtuosity of the player. And you can take five homespun voices and put them together on a bluegrass harmony, and all the sudden, something magic happens.”

It certainly occurs in the first single, “Not a Song,” by Packway mandolinist Michael Paynter. An infectious, upbeat melody fueled by clever lyrics and la-da-da harmonies, it inspired White’s preteen daughter to start singing along the first time she heard it. “I always wanted a song that my kids would happily sing along with,” he says. “That was a fine moment.”

Says Heaton, “We put a lot of time into trying to write something that seemed more relevant or contemporary. We got so far with it and were satisfied we had done a pretty good job. But when Jim heard it he found four or five fundamental limitations that he changed. It went from something that had a huge amount of potential and would certainly be one of our fans’ favorite songs, to something that might actually appeal to a wide audience.”

The success of their mutual boundary-stretching can be heard in every one of these 11 songs, and in their joint performances. “I’ve always had a cinematic approach and don’t approximate it especially well live,” says White. “They are one of the best live bands you’ll ever hear. They don’t get too wrapped up in the notion of self-reflection or philosophy; they just go out and have fun. And at this point in my life, I want some of that action.”

White’s previous label had spurned his bluegrass-leaning songs. “So I was always in the closet as far as bluegrass was concerned. I got to come out on this record,” he says. “I got to play those harmonies that I really like. That mindset is a world that I’m fascinated by.”

That would include the sometimes “comic and surreal” place where bluegrass meets religion in Southern culture, a place he captures in “Jim 3:16,” which features understated picking by Erwin and banjo player Tom Baker. In it, White not only makes the irrefutable observation, “a bar is just a church where they serve beer,” he also calls out Sleepy LaBeef. The story harks back to when White, “a card-carrying heretic,” was asked to participate in a Sunday gospel sing at the Calgary Folk Festival following the release of Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

“Thankfully, I thought at the time, up walks Sleepy LaBeef, the legendary whiskey-drinkin’, Nudie suit-wearin’, hell-raisin’ rockabilly legend. I figured I had some heretic company for a lively musical dialogue with the white gospel bluegrass bands sharing the stage,” White recalls. “So I sang a song called ‘God Was Drunk When He Made Me.’ The bluegrass groups did not take it well, fomenting the Pentecostal equivalent of Jihad, wanting to Jihad my ass right off the stage. I looked over at Sleepy for moral support and he smiled at me and muttered in his whiskey baritone, ‘You will burn in hell for that song, boy.’ Then he went to the mic and said, ‘I know I have a rep for being a bad man, but six months ago, I rededicated my life to Jesus.’

“He followed me around that whole festival tryin’ to win me back to the Lord,” White says. “When I got home, I started trying to figure out what I would have said to him if I’d thought of it. That song is my mission statement to Sleepy LaBeef. Nobody ever wanted it on a record because it is what it is. When I showed it to these guys, they’re like, ‘Hell, yes, we’re putting that on the record.’”

White’s got a beguiling yarn for nearly every song on the album, though some, like the reason he included “Wordmule Revisited,” are relatively straightforward. In that case, he wanted to try “a crazy bluegrass version” of the original, which appeared in the TV show Breaking Bad.

Though White and the Packway Handle Band gathered together to commit unholy acts of musical fun, the song “Sorrow’s Shine” — a unanimous Packway pick — is, White says, his way of letting fans know he’s still in touch with his serious side. 

“I don’t want to get too lost in this fun-loving bluegrass thing,” he jokes. But whether their songs draw laughter or tears, Jim White and the Packway Handle Band make a great musical match.