Today, acclaimed Detroit singer-songwriter Ethan Daniel Davidson released “Your Old Key,” the latest single to be shared from his forthcoming album Cordelia, which will be released on May 30. Glide Magazine featured the track saying it’s “an easygoing work of pedal steel-laden folk-rock that showcases Davidson’s penchant for writing thoughtful songs in a literary vein… it serves as a reminder that Davidson continues to be a talented and perhaps underrated songwriter.”
"She was particularly talented in terms of home improvement,” states Davidson. “Probably the best carpenter I've ever met––was able to make doors out of a single piece of wood without warping. She was so good that she built a whole new house for herself while I was out getting the paper. I have the key, but it doesn't work for the door anymore. I'm not even sure where the house is, actually. I made this song up on the spot as we recorded it a dozen years ago for the Silvertooth album. Sometimes these things just kind of come out of you.”
Cordelia finds the veteran singer-songwriter exploring new creative territory while continuing down the beguiling and wondrous road that his discography has charted thus far, which over the years has been praised by NPR Music, All Music, American Songwriter, Magnet Magazine and many more. It’s as lush and deeply felt as Davidson’s music has ever been, with countrified balladry and unvarnished blues accompanying this journeyman’s philosophical explorations and ruminations on his past, present, and future.
Cordelia follows 2022’s gorgeous Stranger, which marked both a conclusion and a new beginning after a decade-plus of fruitful creative collaboration with Warren Defever of experimental rock legends His Name Is Alive (who Davidson is continuing to collaborate with on future projects as well). “I was overdue to start all over again with a bunch of new people,” Davidson explains. But sometimes a change of scenery is needed for a spell, and so as Davidson was armed with an array of songs he had in his arsenal largely from a COVID-era songwriting span, he reached out to producer David Katznelson for some ideas on who to work with, who in turn recommended North Mississippi Allstars frontman Luther Dickinson as the perfect co-producer alongside Katznelson.
Joining Davidson and Dickinson on Cordelia: bassist and Emmylou Harris collaborator Byron House, drummer Marco Giovino (Robert Plant, John Cale), and multi-instrumentalist Rayfield “Ray Ray” Holloman, who contributed pedal steel and piano across the record.
Cordelia was sonically inspired by Davidson’s love for the raw blues records that storied label Fat Possum were releasing in the 1990s. “I've always been a fan of that hill-country punk blues,” he explained. “That's not the kind of music I do, but it always had a big impact on me, and I knew Luther would be a good guy to translate these songs and put a real good band together.”
The album’s namesake is inspired by the titular daughter featured in Shakespeare’s classic tragedy King Lear, who Davidson finds a sense of personal kinship with.
“My adopted father was a great guy, but by the end of his life, he had a lot of sycophants gathered around him when he was in declining health,” he recalls. “I came to feel like Cordelia, because I wasn’t around him for his money—it was because I was this kid that he took in and took care of, and I loved him for it.”
A unique perspective, for certain—and reflective of not only Cordelia but Davidson’s career as a whole thus far, which has found him on an eternal search for self as well as for the communal aspect of others. ”I write these songs because I'm trying to meet people and have real relationships,” he explains. “I want to find people with whom I share a common language. That's what I'm interested in doing, and if music is a vehicle for that, then that's why I continue to do it.”
Cordelia Tracklist:
1. I Know My Rider Knows My Name
2. Heart First Into Heartache
3. Gasoline
4. Leaving Soon
5. Your Old Key
6. Along In The Wind And The Rain
7. Someone’s Asking For You
