Nashville’s The Danberrys are somehow both charmingly old-world and very much of this moment. The married couple’s rich pastoral blues and muscly folk evoke the big-hearted storytelling of pioneering giants like the Carter Family but could only come now, as a mixed offshoot of roots music’s ever-growing family tree.

In 2009, the two recorded singer/guitarist DeBerry DeBerry’s original material together on a whim, and The Danberrys were born. More than a decade later, six Independent Music Award nominations, including two nods for best Americana album and one for best EP, punctuate their résumé. Their 2016 LP Give & Receive earned serious acclaim, and the pair’s fourth album, Shine, sails past the high expectations that ensued. Produced by ace drummer Marco Giovino (Band of Joy, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller) and executive produced by Brian Brinkerhoff, Shine captures the Danberrys’ fiercely guarded independence––and revels in it. Singer Daniel Daniel’s commanding voice roars low and high––an ideally nuanced partner for DeBerry’s subtly virtuosic guitar playing. For the first time in their career, the two co-wrote every song together, pulling in the help of a third songwriter on a handful of the tracks.

Their unforced creative approach is on triumphant display on Shine, the twelve-song collection reveals a pair of artists putting years of passionate study in bluegrass, blues, funk, folk, gospel, and pop to brilliant use: conversational stories and metaphorical sketches of the natural world rest on beds of complex bluesy folk. “I’ve always loved music that makes you guess what it’s about,” Daniel says. “We want our songs to be vague enough that they could be interpreted to mean different things.”

“We could spell it out,” DeBerry adds. “But we’re bored with the obvious.”

The title track kicks off the album with moody, guitar-punched swagger. Darkness sets the stage only to give way to the light Daniel and DeBerry refuse to stop seeking. “The song is a reminder––a daily mantra,” Daniel says. “How do you get through today and continue to grow and let go of all the things from your past that want to keep you down and keep you from being who you really are in the world?” Beginning with only Daniel’s voice, which is soon joined by DeBerry’s somber electric guitar, “The Mountain” addresses similar life-affirming themes. The incomparable Darrell Scott adds backing vocals to the track, which grooves as it soars.

A preternaturally gifted singer, Daniel first performed on her hometown church stage––after her parents combatted her severe stage fright with gentle reminders that everyone would just “be so disappointed” if she didn’t get up to sing. Up the road in Dickson, DeBerry picked up the guitar at 10 and never put it down.

DeBerry and Daniel began dating in high school and didn’t break up until two years into college. Right before the two parted ways, DeBerry gave Daniel a guitar and taught her a handful of chords and songs. “I was left with a broken heart, a guitar, and three chords,” Daniel says, then laughs. “So I just started writing––mostly sad songs about Ben.”

Five years later, the two ran into each other in their college town of Cookeville, Tennessee. Four months after that, they were married. The two moved to East Nashville, where DeBerry––who had been performing locally for years––became a regular at the now-iconic Wednesday-night bluegrass jams at The 5 Spot. “I immersed myself in playing, and I just started writing one day,” DeBerry remembers. “Dorothy said, ‘Those songs are cool––we have to record them!’”

“Holding the Bag” mixes sorrow and masterful storytelling, pulling listeners into an unnamed character’s heartbreaking perspective. Daniel has a habit of diving into her stories and the people in them. “Please forgive me, I’m a selfish man,” she sings on the heavy “Never Gone”. The two wrote the song about a friend’s father who battled chronic illness and chose to say goodbye on his own terms as much as possible, breaking the hearts of his daughters and wife in the process. Haunting “Francis” is another compelling experimentation with perspective and narrative.

While sadness and longing course through the entire record, bright-eyed positivity is never far away. “Love Conquers War” offers timely wisdom, while “Coals Glow” shares a story of stubborn light. Album closer “Rain” features the duo singing in unison, and once again, what begins as embattled pleading and worry unfolds into faith and unity.

“The River is Wide” is a stunner with classic bones and modern candor. Daniel got the idea for the song after a vision she experienced while meditating, a practice she’s employed to re-center and heal for years. Building from a subdued reflection over strings to a heart-pounding, tambourine-led chant, the song lays bare the mental and emotional chains trauma leaves behind, which engulf survivors in feelings of self-doubt and insignificance. “My childhood is scarred by severe physical and psychological trauma, and I was enslaved to the things that happened to me when I was little,” Daniel says. “I hadn’t really been able to live my life––suffered from stage fright, zero self-confidence, and self-hatred. I had to reach for something way bigger than I am to get out of that. I had to keep on walking.” With strength and vulnerability, the track epitomizes the entire album’s tender balance of hard times and hope.

Taken all together, the songs on Shine prove that the Danberrys see music as part of a bigger purpose. “My goal in life is to figure out what we are doing here. Why are we here?” Daniel says. “There are a lot of reasons to feel helpless, pointless, and irrelevant in this world. I want people to feel hope when they listen to our music. That’s the reason we do it.”

Nashville Southern rockers Great Peacock have officially announced an October 9 release date for the band's third LP, Forever Worse Better, and have shared the first single "All I Ever Do" at American Songwriter, who called their new album, "pretty weighty material." The track was also featured as a "Song of the Week" at Rolling Stone Country, who said they, "split the difference between Tom Petty’s jangle and the otherworldly swirl of Eighties college-rock."

Leave it to Great Peacock — a band whose big, bold sound has been sharpened by years of relentless touring — to create some of the most compelling rock & roll road music of the 21st century. Forever Worse Better, the band's third release, is an anthemic soundtrack for a life spent on the move, chasing down brighter horizons somewhere between the blur of truck stops and traffic lights — drawing from imagery that is painfully absent in the present moment in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Self-produced and funded by the bandmates themselves, this is Great Peacock's defining album: a record about the three-way intersection between drive, desperation, and determination, rooted in the epic sweep of heartland rock, the harmonized melodies of amplified Americana, and the hooks of guitar-driven pop music.

The Nashville-based musicians — frontman/guitarist Andrew Nelson, guitarist/harmony vocalist Blount Floyd, and bass player Frank Keith IV — have racked up plenty of highway miles since releasing Making Ghosts, the 2013 debut record that introduced Great Peacock as modern-day interpreters of the American South's rich musical history. They took their cues from the greats, rolling the concentric influences of Tom Petty, George Jones, and forward-thinking folk bands into a sound that was just as colorful as the group's name. Then, as the euphoric rush of forming a new band gave way to the grounded (but equally inspiring) reality of touring for 100+ days a year, Great Peacock evolved their sound while also expanding their audience. They swapped their acoustic guitars for electrics. They made room for synthesizers and harder-hitting hooks. By the time Gran Pavo Real arrived in 2018, Great Peacock had grown beyond their rootsy beginnings, now flaunting a sound that paired the band's southern stripes with sharper dynamics and more pointed, poignant songwriting.

Like the album before it, Gran Pavo Real was accompanied by a flurry of tour dates. Great Peacock gigged everywhere they could, selling out dive bars one minute and graduating to amphitheater shows the next, leaving a unique mark everywhere they went. In between tours, Nelson found himself on the road in a different capacity, driving a delivery truck for a small farm. He crisscrossed the southeast week after week, delivering meat to restaurants in different towns. It was a good job, but a lonely one, too, and Nelson kept himself busy by writing songs. Inspiration was easy to find, from the rhythm of the road to the open expanse of sunlit landscapes shining through the windshield. What began taking shape during those solitary trips was a new album about being alone and searching for outside acceptance — in romance, business, and music — before realizing that true acceptance begins with yourself.

"The first half of the album is about feeling empty and looking to fill that void with romance," says Nelson. "It's about a girl, and I didn't wind up getting that girl. The second half — and the album as a whole, really — is about learning to love and accept yourself. Those themes tie in with this being the band's third album. We're struggling to find success, and I want people to know we're struggling, just like they are. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, though, and you can work hard to get to it."

Looking to create a southern take on heartland classic rock, Great Peacock purchased their own recording gear and took their time recording Forever Worse Better, with Nelson and Floyd sharing production duties. The bulk of the songs were tracked at Sound Emporium during a series of live takes, while overdubs took place at Floyd's home studio. And while the album's guest list is admittedly impressive — with everyone from American Aquarium's former pedal-steel guitarist, Adam Kurtz, to Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit's lead guitarist, Sadler Vaden, lending their help — most of Forever Worse Better was handled in-house, a move that showcases the strength of a band whose members have not only crystallized their sound but sharpened their own abilities, too.

"I ain't afraid of dying, I wanna ride that high wind, I'm afraid of never being alive," Nelson and Floyd sing on "High Wind," wrapping their harmonized voices into a song that encapsulates the album's go-for-broke mentality. From the swirling keyboards that kickstart "All I Ever Do" to the gospel-like fervor that fills the album's closing statement of self-worth, "Learning to Say Goodbye," Forever Worse Better boldly aims for the same sonic territory occupied by the masters of atmospheric rock & roll. Seminal albums like Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA, U2's The Joshua Tree, and Oasis' Definitely Maybe are all evoked, as is the gritty grandeur of Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps and the modern rumble of The War on Drugs. The result is an album that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, yet still sports a sound that's unmistakably Great Peacock's own.

Forever Worse Better is an album born from the rigors of the road, and all the personal struggles that come with it. In 2020, the road looks much different, as live shows and touring have ground to a halt. Great Peacock have created a soundtrack for those of us who, like them, long to be back on the road to somewhere better, the windows down, the radio cranked high, songs moving through our head at highway speed.

Fredericksburg, Va. country rocker Steven Bruce has officially released his debut LP Same Time, Same Place, Same Station.

More than a decade before Steven Bruce recorded Same Time, Same Place, Same Station — a classic country-rock record for modern times, rooted in outlaw spirit, autobiographical songwriting, and raw resilience — the Virginia native strummed some of his first songs in his grandparents' living room, performing Merle Haggard covers and other country classics for two of the most influential figures in his life.

"That's where my passion for music began," remembers Bruce, who served as a caretaker for his grandparents while still in high school. "Between taking them to doctor's appointments and grocery stores, I'd sit with them in the living room, playing the songs they wanted to hear. Every time we finished and I went to leave, Nana would give me a kiss and a hug and say, 'We'll be seeing you again; same time, same place, same station.'"

"They both had asked me, years prior to their deaths, to sing at their funerals," he adds. "I did for them both."

Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and raised in the surrounding counties, Bruce grew up fast, landing his first barroom gigs as an 18-year-old performer and marrying at 22. A founding member of the country band Whiskey Revival, he wasted little time building his audience and his acclaim, with the group being dubbed the "Best of the Burg" by a local publication. His music career was beginning to take shape, but his marriage was crumbling. By his mid-20s, Bruce was divorced. Less than two years later, his grandparents passed away. To cope, Bruce turned to his favorite music — the cosmic country of Gram Parsons, the burly twang of Waylon Jennings, the heartland rock of Tom Petty, the modern-day southern swagger of Margo Price — and picked up his guitar, writing a batch of songs that saluted his honky-tonk heroes while establishing a unique, countrified sound of Bruce's own.

There's plenty of heartbreak and loss on Same Time, Same Place, Same Station. Autobiographical songs like "Shirley Bird" and the sweepingly nostalgic "Keeping Time (Until Then)" pay tribute to Bruce's grandparents, while "Cryin' Eyes" — with its mix of pedal steel guitar, loping grooves, and vocal harmonies — turns a tear-stained eye to his divorce. In the spirit of his late relatives, though, the album is also a celebration of life, focusing not only upon its struggles and setbacks, but also its small victories. "Weekend Song" is a roadhouse roots-rocker with plenty of Chuck Berry-inspired guitar riffs, and the spirited "Detours" is a kiss-off to anyone standing in Bruce's way. On album highlights like "Rhinestoned" — an original song worthy of Gram Parsons' old-school duets with Emmylou Harris — Bruce even finds a balance between melancholy and resilience, occupying the same fertile middle ground as many of his country favorites.

"Everyone grieves differently," the songwriter admits. "I want this record to serve as a tribute to my grandparents, and a tribute to myself for making it through what I thought were the worst times of my life."

Helping him through those tough times were a number of collaborators from across Virginia, including producer E.P. Jackson, harmony vocalists Mackenzie Roark and Karen Jonas, pedal steel guitarist Gary Lee Gimble, and drummers Derrick Decker and Seth Brown. Together, the group recorded Same Time, Same Place, Same Station at Fill Your Boots Studio in Fredericksburg, filling the album with Telecaster twang, swaggering vocals, and even a reimagined cover of Jack White's "There's No Home for You Here."

Same Time, Same Place, Same Station takes its audience on a rollercoaster ride of human experience, its 12 songs anchored by sharply-written stories about emotional lows, chemical highs, busy workweeks, wild weekends, old flames, new relationships, lovers who leave, and the family members whose influence will forever live on. There's heartbreak here, but there's hope, too, with Steven Bruce shining a light on his own experience.

"I hope folks listen through this album and it makes them feel like they can make it through whatever may lay ahead of them," he says. "From my divorce to losing both of my grandparents, life throws you curveballs sometimes. The best you can hope for is to lock in and slam it out of the park."

Nashville recording artist Colleen Orender's new music has been called “a sultry jazz dream with pop sensibilities and a touch of James Bond” by NPR when she was part of their recent “10 Artists to Add from Nashville” feature.

A touring jazz and blues artist for decades, Orender turns venues into smoldering 1930s Mississippi juke joints.  Her new single "Run Right Back to You", was inspired by a lush mix of artists spanning from Judy Garland to Joe Jonas. Hers is a voice that brings with it an aura of familiarity - having been described as “Amy Winehouse with Julie London’s essence.” The track will appear on her upcoming album In The Company of Old Men.

“I grew up on the blues,” Orender recalls. “The first song I remember learning when I was about three years old was ‘Statesboro Blues’ from my dad, who was a huge blues fanatic. I knew the music of John Lee Hooker, BB King, Denise La Salle, Etta James, Johnnie Taylor, Gregg Allman, and Bonnie Raitt in elementary school. I also had a deep love for Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, and of course, Judy Garland was a huge influence. Later, I would fall in love with jazz greats such as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and my absolute fave Julie London.”

Born in Tampa, Orender began her singing career joining her grandfather's country band at the tender age of five. Upon her arrival in Nashville, she was featured on a slew of demos produced by Tim Akers (Music Director/Keys for Prime Time Country TNN, Amy Grant, Faith Hill, Rascal Flatts). She also joined a band at Opryland which led her to opening slots for Rick Springfield and Wilson Phillips. She was part of the opening of Always Patsy Cline at the Ryman Auditorium and has also opened for Wynnona Judd.

“At some point I gave up on songwriting since so many projects never got lift-off. The music industry wasn’t set up to support independent artists when I first got started, so I just focused on being on the road and singing the songs I loved. But the ideas and songs never stopped coming to me. I’m privy to a lot of conversations in bars late at night. That’s where a lot of my inspiration comes from for my new music.”

Orender has already released several singles from her upcoming album, The Company of Older Men, due out later this year.  “Don’t Give a Damn About Love,” written by Orender and Nikki Williams (Demi Lovato, Lauren Alaina, Laura Pausini), is getting regular radio play in Nashville and several NPR stations outside of her home market. “The Mouth You Feed,” written by Orender, Greg Becker (Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts), and Michael Davey was featured on NPR’s “10 Artists to Add from Nashville” list. 

BriteHeart, a civic engagement organization devoted to registering and motivating people to vote since 2017, is thrilled to announce the Harmony on the Horizon Early Vote Concert Series.

In support of the Early Voting season in Tennessee, taking place Oct. 14-29, BriteHeart has partnered with music incubator nonprofit This Is Noteworthy, Voting is Vital and the The Caverns concert venue, to present a nonpartisan concert series in an effort to elevate the community, inspire engagement and increase civic participation.

The series features a vast lineup of 18 genre-spanning artists performing a set of all original music including John and Lilly Hiatt, Langhorne Slim, Louis York (the duo of Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony who have collectively written hits for the likes of Miley Cyrus, Rihanna and Bruno Mars), Katie Pruitt and more.

Not only will the artist's individuality shine, they will collectively be speaking to the themes of democracy, empowerment, community, resilience, struggle and joy through their music - all in support of the message that voting is vital and that voting early is a meaningful way for us all to demonstrate our commitment to civic responsibility.

“We are extremely excited about the Early Voting Concert Series,” said Chase Cole, chairman and founder of BriteHeart. “Bringing wonderful performing artists together with citizens to celebrate democracy is at the heart of our vision for America.”

Full lineup for the Harmony on the Horizon Early Vote Concert Series below:

  *  Mel Washington

  *  SUSTO

  *  Lydia Luce

  *  Lilly & John Hiatt

  *  Lockeland Strings feat. Joy Oladokun

  *  Becca Mancari

  *  Langhorne Slim

  *  Larysa Jaye

  *  Katie Pruitt

  *  Devon Gilfillian

  *  Haley Mae Campbell

  *  Louis York

  *  The Shindellas

  *  Gustavo Guerrero

  *  Early James

  *  Kyshona Armstrong

  *  Lorde Goldie

Nashville Southern rockers Great Peacock have released their highly anticipated third LP Forever Worse Better to critical acclaim.

Leave it to Great Peacock — a band whose big, bold sound has been sharpened by years of relentless touring — to create some of the most compelling rock & roll road music of the 21st century. Forever Worse Better, the band's third release, is an anthemic soundtrack for a life spent on the move, chasing down brighter horizons somewhere between the blur of truck stops and traffic lights — drawing from imagery that is painfully absent in the present moment in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Self-produced and funded by the bandmates themselves, this is Great Peacock's defining album: a record about the three-way intersection between drive, desperation, and determination, rooted in the epic sweep of heartland rock, the harmonized melodies of amplified Americana, and the hooks of guitar-driven pop music.

The Nashville-based musicians — frontman/guitarist Andrew Nelson, guitarist/harmony vocalist Blount Floyd, and bass player Frank Keith IV — have racked up plenty of highway miles since releasing Making Ghosts, the 2013 debut record that introduced Great Peacock as modern-day interpreters of the American South's rich musical history. They took their cues from the greats, rolling the concentric influences of Tom Petty, George Jones, and forward-thinking folk bands into a sound that was just as colorful as the group's name. Then, as the euphoric rush of forming a new band gave way to the grounded (but equally inspiring) reality of touring for 100+ days a year, Great Peacock evolved their sound while also expanding their audience. They swapped their acoustic guitars for electrics. They made room for synthesizers and harder-hitting hooks. By the time Gran Pavo Real arrived in 2018, Great Peacock had grown beyond their rootsy beginnings, now flaunting a sound that paired the band's southern stripes with sharper dynamics and more pointed, poignant songwriting.

Like the album before it, Gran Pavo Real was accompanied by a flurry of tour dates. Great Peacock gigged everywhere they could, selling out dive bars one minute and graduating to amphitheater shows the next, leaving a unique mark everywhere they went. In between tours, Nelson found himself on the road in a different capacity, driving a delivery truck for a small farm. He crisscrossed the southeast week after week, delivering meat to restaurants in different towns. It was a good job, but a lonely one, too, and Nelson kept himself busy by writing songs. Inspiration was easy to find, from the rhythm of the road to the open expanse of sunlit landscapes shining through the windshield. What began taking shape during those solitary trips was a new album about being alone and searching for outside acceptance — in romance, business, and music — before realizing that true acceptance begins with yourself.

"The first half of the album is about feeling empty and looking to fill that void with romance," says Nelson. "It's about a girl, and I didn't wind up getting that girl. The second half — and the album as a whole, really — is about learning to love and accept yourself. Those themes tie in with this being the band's third album. We're struggling to find success, and I want people to know we're struggling, just like they are. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, though, and you can work hard to get to it."

Looking to create a southern take on heartland classic rock, Great Peacock purchased their own recording gear and took their time recording Forever Worse Better, with Nelson and Floyd sharing production duties. The bulk of the songs were tracked at Sound Emporium during a series of live takes, while overdubs took place at Floyd's home studio. And while the album's guest list is admittedly impressive — with everyone from American Aquarium's former pedal-steel guitarist, Adam Kurtz, to Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit's lead guitarist, Sadler Vaden, lending their help — most of Forever Worse Better was handled in-house, a move that showcases the strength of a band whose members have not only crystallized their sound, but sharpened their own abilities, too.

"I ain't afraid of dying, I wanna ride that high wind, I'm afraid of never being alive," Nelson and Floyd sing on "High Wind," wrapping their harmonized voices into a song that encapsulates the album's go-for-broke mentality. From the swirling keyboards that kickstart "All I Ever Do" to the gospel-like fervor that fills the album's closing statement of self-worth, "Learning to Say Goodbye," Forever Worse Better boldly aims for the same sonic territory occupied by the masters of atmospheric rock & roll. Seminal albums like Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA, U2's The Joshua Tree, and Oasis' Definitely Maybe are all evoked, as is the gritty grandeur of Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps and the modern rumble of The War on Drugs. The result is an album that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, yet still sports a sound that's unmistakably Great Peacock's own.

Forever Worse Better is an album born from the rigors of the road, and all the personal struggles that come with it. In 2020, the road looks much different, as live shows and touring have ground to a halt. Great Peacock have created a soundtrack for those of us who, like them, long to be back on the road to somewhere better, the windows down, the radio cranked high, songs moving through our head at highway speed. 

Stories seem to follow Malin Pettersen wherever she goes, whether it's in the streets of Oslo, Norway, or in the quaint neighborhoods of Nashville, Tennessee.

Raised by a country musician father and a mother who deeply loved jazz, Pettersen grew up surrounded by music. Those early influences and the stories behind them drew her to American culture and arts, including folk and bluegrass. In 2009, she formed the popular country band Lucky Lips, supplying engaging lead vocals to their debut 2010 EP Third Door to the Right. They quickly found success with their engaging blend of traditional folk elements with a modern edge. They continued to release a trove of music over the next few years, including two well-received albums and even participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013. A slight sonic shift on their third record, 2016’s Coming Home, brought the group to a new level of acclaim, eventually earning them a slot at Nashville’s AmericanaFest in 2018.

Propelled by the success of Lucky Lips, Pettersen went onto release her first solo album References Pt. 1 in 2018. It won widespread critical praise and even earned her a Spellemann Award (Norwegian Grammy). Later that year, Lucky Lips teamed up with Norwegian blues legend Amund Maarud for their collaborative record Indian Butterfly.

The tightly-knit creative community that Nashville harbors kept calling to Pettersen. Those pilgrimages back to the U.S. resulted in the creation of Alonesome, her powerful 2019 mini-album. That release earned her praise from Rolling Stone Country, Paste, Billboard and more. With just her voice and her guitar, the project showcased both Pettersen’s emotive vocals and her expert songwriting, capturing the beautiful complexities of human emotion.

After an Ameripolitan Awards nomination led her back to Tennessee, she returned to Nashville to begin recording her most important project to date. Pettersen tapped into her experiences of exploring America and the creative relationships she developed along the way to create something brand new.

“Even though most of the groundwork was all done live together in one room on both previous albums, there are more layers on this one and it stretches towards more of a cinematic soundscape,” Pettersen says. "There is more California, Bobbie Gentry and cosmic-ness on this one."

Wildhorse, due out on Oct. 16, kicks off an exciting new chapter for Pettersen. Recorded in Nashville’s Music City U.S.A., Pettersen recruited an all-star lineup of musicians including Aaron Goodrich (Colter Wall), Misa Arriaga (Kacey Musgraves, Lillie Mae), Ryan A. Keith (Rayland Baxter), and Eddy Dunlap (Luke Bryan, the Grand Ole Opry house band), with additional contributions from Logan Ledger, Dennis Crouch, Ben Sanders, Mike Eli, and Emily Keith.

Together, they built a soundscape that’s richer than ever before. Pettersen’s stand-out vocals are supported by elements of groovy 70's pop and country that culminate in a record perfect for rolling your windows down for a cruise along the coastline.

“America has inspired this album in a very direct way, through places I’ve been like California, to places I’ve only read about like Arkansas,” Pettersen says. "I am so fascinated by the way that America is so many things. So many layers… so many worlds in one. It feels like my own mind, and sometimes that many worlds in one can be difficult to co-exist, but that’s one of the things that makes America so marvelous, intriguing, and fascinating - so I try to accept the same with my mind and the ways I want to create music.”

From the autobiographical “Weightless” to the excitement and fear of chasing a “Wildhorse Dream,” Pettersen brings a new sense of wonder, understanding, and determination to every song. She explores how sticking to your "Hometown" can sometimes keep you from seeing the big picture. On "Queen of the Meadow," Pettersen highlights the fragility of life and all of the complicated feelings those fleeting moments can bring. As a whole, Wildhorse finds Malin Pettersen at her best, manifesting the genius of greats like Joni Mitchell and Willie Nelson to share a journey that's all her own.

"Each project and album are its own little world, story, theme, for me,” Pettersen explains. “It’s really all about the process and trying to capture the actual music-making onto tape. I feel like this story, with these people and these songs that I feel so grateful for them working with me on, is one that will forever have a truly special place in my heart and mind alike."

Written as an examination of personal relationships, the new album by The Northern Belle is aptly titled We Wither, We Bloom. The Norwegian septet is among the pioneers of the nordicana scene that has been gaining momentum in the US the last few years. Fronted by prolific singer-songwriter Stine Andreassen (also of folk quartet Silver Lining) and armed with pedal steel, slide guitar, lush harmonies, a string quartet and their secret weapon, the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, The Northern Belle have developed their own unique brew of pop-oriented americana and folk music. Imagine Fleetwood Mac fronted by Jenny Lewis in a country mood.

Brimming with melodic tunes and clever lyrics, We Wither We Bloom is the band's third studio album, albeit the first to be released internationally. Having made the difficult decision to quit her day job to pursue music, Andreassen and The Northern Belle received widespread praise and a Spellemann nomination (Norwegian Grammy) for the 2018 album Blinding Blue Neon. In the spring of 2019, Andreassen traveled to Nashville for three months to write the follow-up. The welcoming and thriving music scene found east of the Cumberland River sparked a creative songwriting spell that resulted in this inspired collection of tracks. The distance from home allowed for new views on friends, family, love, loss and homesickness, resulting in the band's most personal album to date.

Constantly evolving as a band, The Northern Belle’s sound in 2020 is inspired by contemporary acts such as Erin Rae, Kacey Musgraves, Phoebe Bridgers and Marit Larsen, as well as legends such The Beach Boys, The Byrds and Glen Campbell. All resulting in a record that pays tribute to its inspirations while also showing true originality.

Michael Graber was a very anxious child, and he could only ever find peace between the folds of an expansive musical universe. As frontman of acoustic collective Graber Gryass, he fashions a vast and eclectic background into an immersive journey into an original expansive, exploratory song catalogue. The first record of two, Late Bloom, reads with straight-arrow storytelling, but carries a remarkable importance about the human experience.

“This album really is symbolic of my whole existence. I like to think it’s a message for other people, too,” he says. “You look at a lot of the great novelists. They don’t publish their first novel until their 40s or 50s. This is the first record of all originals under my name. I just turned 50. It’s a real celebration of flourishing.”

Even more, Late Bloom exudes some of the most exemplary songwriting and musicianship you’ll hear all year. That is in large part to the smorgasbord of players and their collective expertise. You’ll find musicians who have played in Public Enemy, Rumpke Mountain Boys, Devil Train, and Dagnabbits, among others. Graber himself has contributed to recordings for Bluff City Backsliders, the Grifters, Foy Vance (“To Memphis”), and currently plays in the Bluff City Backsliders, Zeke’s Three Generation Jug Rascals, and Damfool, and boasts previous work with Professor Elixir’s Southern Troubadours, Fatback Jubilee, and 611. 

Such pedigrees flourish into a vibrant display across 12 songs. A syrupy barroom tune, “Devil’s Got Your Name” is a slice of “country surrealism as a day-drinking melodrama, filled with despair,” as Graber puts it. Then, you have entries like “Fool Living Wrong” and “More to Lose” dissecting the brokenness of marriage with crushing precision. “You hold my dreams at night / Won’t leave me alone / Possessed, confused, I don’t know what to do,” he laments, as Gia Welch’s stunning harmonies wash around him.

“When the Water’s This Low” stands among Graber’s darkest, most eerie stories. Initially written as a poem, he recalls a startling experience he had as a young boy that has “haunted me ever since,” he says. “There are lots of snakes when the water’s this low / Each one has poison / It can drag you below / as they slither underwater, you feel it in your soul,” he hisses across a swampy soundscape. “The song is true, except the death at the end. And I had a fever, so it was surreal,” he remembers.

Late Bloom completely lives up to its moniker. 

Out of Memphis, a mecca of blues, soul, and rock ‘n roll music, Graber grew up immersed in the city’s rich cultural and musical heritage, living next door to Bettye Crutcher, the famed Stax singer/writer/producer.  When he first heard “Penny Lane” by the Beatles, he cried in recognition. It was an awakening -- his first realization of “the power of song,” he recalls.

From that moment, his life catapulted onto a trajectory of great musical curiosity. He asked his mother for a guitar in fourth grade (and she cried, too, knowing what kind of uncertain journey lay ahead). His pursuits took him all over the map, musically speaking, from playing in heavy metal and punk bands in high school to returning to acoustic guitar at 18.

A new, unexpected muse had struck. “I missed out on the ‘90s. My wife grew up in the grunge period, but angst and yelling wasn’t speaking to me as much as Western swing and brother duets,” he recalls. He was finishing graduate work at the time and was totally “burned out on bluegrass.” Around 1998, he decided to sober up and create music with a distinctly more Memphis character, the birth of the Bluff City Backsliders.

Throughout the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, Graber became a titan in the local Memphis scene. As part of 611, he was among the first artists to record for Memphis’ now-legendary Shangri-La Records, an avenue which was crucial in those early days for other artists like The Grifters (originally named A Band Called Bud), as well. Graber later collaborated as part of an 11-piece called Professor Elixir’s Southern Troubadours for a decade, before mounting an off-shoot called Fatback Jubilee, an endeavor which allowed for an intense, real study of old time and bluegrass music.

Life then threw him a curveball when he had two children, both of whom suffered from Cystic Fibrosis. Music was understandably pushed to the back-burner. “I had to provide insurance and raise those girls,” he says. He didn’t completely leave music, but he couldn’t actively tour like in those early days. He predominantly played in local bar bands and expressed his creativity in other ways, including writing a book of poetry and a collection of essays on creativity, leadership, and innovation in business (The Last Real Medicine Show and Going Electric).

Graber has clearly worn many varied artistic masks throughout his life. With Graber Gryass, the 50-year-old stands in the sun with his unique nu-grass style. Late Bloom sticks to conventions that simply work, yet it bounds far and away from what one might expect. In 2019, he decided he finally wanted to write again. Having kept a collection of random notes and bits of paper scrawled with lyrics, spanning nearly 30 years, he pieced together what he had and soon realized an album (or two) had formed.

But then: the pandemic hit. Another curveball. Ever the intuitive, empathetic thinker, Graber “noticed friends that were stranded in New York state, and their gigs were being cancelled left and right,” he says. He thought about how he could help and cooked up an idea of writing two songs a week and then parlaying that work into fundraising for Memphis musicians, in a series titled MICRODOSE. “What a deep well of creativity I rediscovered,” he says. “All that music I had been studying for all those years mixed with the present moment.”

An unexpected by-product, his creative juices were once again flowing to plot his own projects. “By need, I was tricked into rediscovering this deep part of me that I had suppressed all these years,” he notes.

Late Bloom, recorded over two days, sprouted from his fingertips and supplied some necessary healing in the process. But bluegrass is different in Memphis than anywhere else. “We like to tell stories here and be intense. The air is thick. You walk outside, and it’s like doing an isometric exercise with the humidity. That sensibility comes through in the whole sensibility. It’s our native place.”

A rooted, visceral intensity electrifies the record ─ evident in songs like “A Fable,” a disorienting meditation on generations, and “Wind That Shakes the Cotton,” a song taking the perspective of his daughter Jesse’s young suitor. Graber’s voice keeps time with the locomotive spark of every single arrangement, a give and take that mesmerizes the listener into sinking deep into the experience. 

Graber Gryass is most certainly not another run-of-the-mill bluegrass band. There is an indelible excitement - a unique fingerprint - to their original stories, and they shoot with real, raw honesty. Late Bloom is the start of it all.

Van Plating wasn’t sure how her self-titled album would be received in 2019 after a nine-year hiatus from music.

After attending Florida Southern College and majoring in violin and voice, Plating spent her 20s immersed in the indie rock scene, playing violin and singing with her band Pemberly (named after the country estate in Pride & Prejudice). The band was poised for success, receiving warm receptions while on tour with the likes of Copeland, The Postmarks, Matt Pond PA, and Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s. Things were going great — until they weren’t. The band broke up and she decided to take some time off. A year turned into three, which turned into six, and before she knew it nearly a decade had passed.

Plating woke up one day and wasn’t sure where she fit in musically anymore. The music business isn’t known for being kind to women after they reach a certain age — and she no longer had a band to blend in with. She knew if she took another shot at it, she would be front and center, and would rise or fall alone. Either way, she knew she wanted to try again, and cast any fears aside.

Plating recently confessed about 2019’s Van Plating, “A year and a half ago, I thought I was going to write a little acoustic record to give to my friends, but that’s not what it turned out to be at all.” Instead, the album took on a life of its own, blossoming into a collection of songs indebted to the confessional folk tradition whilst embracing forward-thinking pop song structures, harkening to celebrated offerings from Lilith Fair icons like Paula Cole, Aimee Mann, Natalie Merchant, and Shawn Colvin. Plating also dipped her toes into the Americana world with songs like “Standing Still” and “Mountain” — both of which received praise from Americana-focused media outlets.

“I was literally in the studio experimenting and trying things,” she recalls. “Where I landed, which has been really cool, is in that Americana world, which I love a lot. And that just sort of happened organically after the record was released. I had a lot of momentum coming into the spring with a festival booked, and a lot of shows were coming in before they all got canceled, and they were good opportunities.”

It was the reception to her new sound that gave her the confidence to lean into a more singer-songwriter vibe on the songs she’s recorded during quarantine.

“The album I put out last year really helped me find my way,” she affirms. “Now I feel like I don't need anybody else to tell me or help me kind of uncover who I am anymore; I know that I'm a strong singer and a strong songwriter. That record taught me who I am.”

Now she is back with a new batch of songs.

“I am always writing. I work on music every single day, whether I’m performing or not. I have probably written somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-40 songs since January, and ‘Bird On A Wire’ is the first one to be released from this latest body of work, pandemic be damned!”

It’s also the first song she wrote with friend Brian Elijah Smith, on the day they first met.

“When Bryan and I met up to write a song in January, we didn’t have any expectations or plans for what we’d make. I was scrolling Instagram one morning and came across him performing on a Tampa public radio show I have also performed on. I wasn’t familiar with his work, so I pulled up Spotify and was totally blown away by his songwriting and spellbinding vocals. So I did what millennials do...and followed him on Instagram.”

While she was still listening to his record, she received a direct message from Bryan — he was listening to her music, as she was simultaneously listening to his. He loved her voice and sound and asked if she wanted to meet up to write a song.

“I said ‘sure’ and when we showed up to the first write back in January, we were wearing matching outfits. Same vintage blue t-shirt, same jeans, boots, same sunglasses. It was totally embarrassing but broke the ice quite effectively. No reason to hold onto your dignity when you’re walking around town in a matching outfit with someone you only just met.”

The song comes from the feeling of being so tired, so ready to be done with whatever burden you’re carrying, or maybe your loved one is the one you’re carrying, and you’re just not strong enough to hold it together any longer. It’s not without hope, however. It’s a song that says, “I’m not strong enough to carry you, but I can hold your hand as we wander blindfolded in the dark.” It’s a postmodern lullaby singing to one’s lover to let go of what is weighing them down so they can join in the glorious, wild ride of living fully again. Both lovers broken and weary, but hanging on and determined to keep dreaming.

This is the first in a series of four upcoming singles from Van Plating’s new musical direction that she can’t wait to share.

Toronto Americana / Outlaw rockers F. Scott & The Nighthawks have officially released their new EP Straight to Heaven. A second EP entitled Hold On To Your Heart will follow, set for release TBD 2021.

Having gone ten rounds battling everything from self-doubt to self-destrructive behavior, F. Scott has seen music as his lifeblood for as long as he can remember.

Five years ago, with both feet firmly planted on the ground and his wife by his side, he penned a song entitled "Stevie Girl", for his then-unborn daughter, and saddled back up for a different kind of trip down the lost highway.

Knowing that it would be the sum of all parts that would make his freight train of fury undeniably electrifying, F. Scott gathered his best friends and formed The Nighthawks to accompany him on the ride.

Set against a backdrop of massive drums, driving guitars, clankin' keys, brassy sax, and plenty of harmonica, this band of barn-burning brothers exists at a crossroads between Outlaw Country, Americana, Punk Rock and good old fashioned rock 'n roll.

Powered by true-blue friendship and a yearning to recount human stories about family, love, loss, and redemption, F. Scott & The Nighthawks are both the warm embrace you long for when you're out drowning your sorrows and the lightning that ignites the most memorable of freewheelin' good times.

Best experienced live with a whisky in-hand, F. Scott & The Nighthawks invite you to find comfort in kinship, a fire in your belly, and to get high as a Muskoka pine. 

Athens, Ga. Americana singer-songwriter Adam Klein has officially released his new EP Little Tiger after sharing singles at American Songwriter, The Bluegrass Situation, Americana Highways, and more leading up to release.

“I killed a stray cat that had been hanging around my yard for a few days,” says Atlanta-via Athens, Georgia singer/songwriter Adam Klein. “It was an accident. I had a hybrid car which was practically silent when it drove. One morning I pulled out of the driveway, and my wife found it dead on the ground. We figure it had crawled under the car, didn’t hear the engine turn on, and I ran over it. I felt pretty bad about it.”

The ensuing song Klein wrote about the incident and his likely role in the cat’s death, is the title track to his new 3-song EP, Little Tiger, a collection of outtakes to be released on January 22, 2021, from the recording sessions for his 2019 album, Low Flyin’ Planes.

For Low Flyin’ Planes, Klein teamed up with his longtime producer and engineer Bronson Tew at Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Mississippi, for their third straight record together (following 2013’s Sky Blue DeVille and 2015’s Archer’s Arrow). Low Flyin’ Planes features sometime Wild Fires guitarist Crash Cason, former Wild Fires Tew on drums, guitar, and harmony vocals, and the sound is capably filled out with Matt Patton (Drive-By Truckers) and Stuart Cole (ex-Squirrel Nut Zippers) on bass, Eric Carlton (Jimbo Mathus) on keys, Kell Kellum (Young Valley) on pedal steel and guitars, Will McCarley (Fat Possum Records) on drums, Hank West (Squirrel Nut Zippers) on sax and trumpet, Schaefer Llana and Anne Freeman on harmony vocals, and other ace players from the Oxford, MS, scene. The result is a strong, sincere collection of folk rock songs featuring Klein’s signature warm vocals colored by a lush, textured sound. The songs on Little Tiger were recorded at Dial Back Sound, and produced, mixed and mastered by Tew at Sleepers Mountain in Portland, Oregon.

Both “Little Tiger” and “Take It (On Faith)” were recorded during the LFP sessions. The band stretches out on the latter, this collection’s closing number, an energetic song with sweeping harmony vocals which straddles the line of serious and playful as Klein details hopeful and alarming visions alike of a possible individual and collective future. Written in 2015, the song seems to portend the current state of national affairs (“I take it that all this hatred / I take it that all this strife / is gonna get worked out one day / on a field with guns and knives / I take it on faith”), while noting the cyclical nature of things — that which has been will once again come to pass (“I take it that it’s all been said and done and done and said before / writ upon the rocks and sand and the ice and dirt and the ocean floor / I take it on faith”). Ultimately, as is usually the case in Klein’s songs, the listener is left with a feeling of hope, as he declares: “I take it that goodness and graciousness are gonna have the final say.”

“It’s just a straightforward three chord song,” says Klein, “and you sure can have a good time with that. That may have been the first song we recorded, and I’m pretty sure it was the first take. Great, raw energy. We played it one more time, but quickly realized we caught it right out of the gate.”

“Little Tiger”, although shelved from the original album, stood out as the favorite track among many of the players on the session, and was rounded out by mellotron compliments of Jay Gonzalez (Drive-By Truckers). “I’ve always sequenced my albums, but this time Bronson recommended we let Patton do it for LFP,” says Klein. “That’s one of his favorite parts of the album creation process, and I definitely trust his instincts and thought it’d be neat to see what he came up with. He drove around with it in his car for a few weeks and sent in a track order that he couldn’t see go any other way. It didn’t include “Little Tiger” or “Take It (On Faith)”, but I think it was a fitting sequence and the 10-song album was already a 45-minute or so listen.”

The EP kicks off with “Halfway to Heaven”, a song intended for inclusion on LFP but which wasn’t recorded during the album sessions. “It was always a key song for me from the collection, and a companion piece to the title track,” Klein offers. “I thought we’d just put it on the opposite side of the record from the song “Low Flyin’ Planes”, but given its similarities in terms of the tuning, the sound, and even the progression, we decided to not even record it at the time and kick it down the road a bit.”

Recorded on a subsequent visit to Dial Back Sound and to the Mississippi Delta, “Halfway to Heaven'' features Klein on acoustic guitar and vocals, Tew on acoustic and electric guitars, bass, drums, and harmony vocals, and Gonzalez on Wurlitzer. The song directly expresses the main themes and questions of Low Flyin’ Planes. “I had been playing music, traveling a lot, and was generally trying to find my footing,” Klein recalls. “I hit the point where I faced a fundamental question— do I keep pursuing music, solely, risking the end of a long-term relationship, perhaps failing to develop myself more broadly, and likely remaining financially unstable, or do I settle in a bit to a domestic life, strengthen my relationship with my then-girlfriend (now wife), and quietly tinker away at creative works in music and other areas? I chose what felt like more stable footing. We now have a young daughter and it’s been fulfilling in a lot of ways. I may not be as hungry and endlessly hustling, but the creative well is far from dry, and I expect to always be plugging away at songwriting, other writings, performing and acting.”

It feels a bit strange, Klein notes, to release these songs amidst the tumult and political backdrop of this period of time, but the downtime of quarantine and the pandemic seemed like the right time to clear the deck of this material and close out the Low Flyin’ Planes cycle. “I worried momentarily that it’s somewhat tone-deaf to release songs right now that make no reference to racial inequities, the increasing division in our country, the suffering amidst coronavirus, and the great reckoning of 2020,” he says. “But people need music and art now. We all need something to move us, uplift us, and to commune with the ineffable power of music and song.”

And as far as material more suited to the times, Klein’s been busy at work. “I’ve written a lot since the killing of George Floyd and recorded an album this past summer grappling with this moment of American history, our past, and our inequities. The songs are in production as we speak, and will hopefully get out there as soon as possible.”

In the meantime, though, Klein offers this Little Tiger EP, which has the signature, evocative production of his records made with Tew, the talents of all the excellent players who graced the songs, and a heartfelt journey through an empathetic life seeking stories, fulfillment, aliveness, and awe, accompanied by a soundtrack of folk rock n’ roll.

Outlaw country duo Rylan Brooks have officially released "Hands Off", the third single from their upcoming LP, after premiering the song at The Boot on February 10.

The pair's sophomore album If Wishes Were Horses is due out March 12.

Bona fide troubadours calling no place home but wherever they happen to be, songwriters Nate Rylan and Chris Brooks used to travel the country together as commercial drivers, hauling cargo and kicking up dust from Texas to Texarkana and Tallahassee to Teaneck. It was exactly the sort of blue-collar grind you'd hear about in a country song, filled with truck stops, radio static, blurred images of the countryside rolling by, and the reassuring rumble of the interstate.

Somewhere along the way — at a motel in Georgia, to be exact — the two pulled their guitars out of the truck's cab and wrote their first song together. More songs followed. Before long, they were stopping by roadhouses in their off-hours, setting up in smokey corners under the neon lights along the way to debut their new originals to bar regulars. The incredible, heartfelt response from the good folks across their routes found the two frontmen embracing a sound that updated the classic country twang of Jerry Reed, Kris Kristofferson, and other sharp-minded outlaws for a contemporary audience. Seemingly from nowhere and everywhere all at once, Rylan Brooks was born.

The duo's dynamic, driving sound kicks into high gear with If Wishes Were Horses, Rylan Brooks' second album. Recorded in Nashville with producer Dean Miller (son of the "King of the Road" himself, Roger Miller), these are the songs of two real-life highwaymen who've witnessed their share of highs and heartbreak throughout their travels. They kick up plenty of gravel with "Abilene," "Hands Off," and "She Loved That Cocaine," three roadhouse roots-rock anthems anchored in grit and guitars, and settle into a back-porch groove with "Passenger Blues." "Keeping My Distance" trades the hell-raising humor of the duo's 2018 release, Half Wild, for something haunting and melancholy, while "If Wishes Were Horses" — the album's warm, wistful title track — finds Rylan Brooks turning regret into a Seventies-inspired southern ballad.

Together, these 10 tracks paint a raw, real picture of a band on the rise, emphasizing honesty and autobiographical storytelling far above the retro-minded revivalism that often characterizes outlaw music these days. After all, Rylan Brooks' two members aren't looking to recreate the past. For all their old-school swagger, they're still making music for the present, filling If Wishes Were Horses with songs about their own victories, vices, struggles, and successes.

"We used to spitball lyrics while driving," Brooks remembers. "It started off with some very tongue-in-cheek stuff inspired by writers like Shel Silverstein. As we kept playing, we realized this music was a great outlet for any kind of story we wanted to tell…especially stories about our own experience out here on the road."

That being said, they don't deliver these stories alone. Rylan Brooks recorded If Wishes Were Horses at Omnisound Studios in Nashville, cutting tracks side-by-side with an all-star cast of Nashville’s best musicians along the way. Fourteen-time ACM “Drummer of the Year” Eddie Bayers had risen to fame by keeping time for Bob Seger and the Grand Ole Opry’s “The Opry Band”, while guitarists Guthrie Trapp and Michael Spriggs had collectively played with Travis Tritt, Dolly Parton, and Patty Loveless. Pedal steel player Steve Hinson previously toured with Randy Travis and Ray Price. Under Dean Miller's direction, the band punctuated Rylan Brooks' songs with Telecaster twang and dancehall dynamics, creating an album rooted not only in first-rate songwriting, but top-shelf performances, too.

On a record filled with some of the genre's most celebrated players, though, it's Nate Rylan and Chris Brooks whose stars shine the brightest. They swap harmonies and trade frontman duties throughout, like the truck-hauling co-pilots they've always been. If Wishes Were Horses finds them back in the driver's seat with a new destination on the logbook, chasing down an original sound that nods to a past rooted in the Wild West but never wavers in its push toward a new horizon. This is music for pool halls, juke joints, honky-tonks, and the highways that connect them, written by two road warriors who are still picking up speed. 

Outlaw country mainstay Dallas Moore has released the second single from his upcoming LP The Rain (out April 9), after premiering the single at Taste of Country on February 23.

2020 started like any other year for Dallas Moore. On the heels of his 2019 LP Tryin’ To Be A Blessing, Moore and his band were booked to perform over 300 shows for the tenth year in a row, prepped and ready to continue tearing up asphalt between dive bars and honky tonks across the country. However, as the global pandemic brought the live music industry to a screeching halt, Moore suddenly found himself with something he wasn’t familiar with after all those years of constant touring: downtime.

“I do most of my writing when I'm riding my Harley Davidson Road King or cutting grass,” Moore notes. “Our tour schedule had been so heavy for the last several years that I hadn't been doing very much of either. All of a sudden I found plenty of time to ride my bike and write.”

The songs came quickly, capturing a sense of renewed energy that Moore found in his downtime.

“I hadn't written a song in nearly two years,” he recalls, pointing to the silver linings of being pulled off the road. “All of a sudden, eleven songs poured out in a three-week span. That makes The Rain different from anything I've ever done after all these years of constant touring.”

Make no mistake, though — The Rain is not a pandemic/quarantine-concept record — it still bears the timeless honky-tonk swagger for which Moore has become acclaimed over the years. From the flint-and-tinder autobiographical swagger of “Every Night I Burn Another Honky Tonk Down” to the timely awareness of “Better Days” and the album’s anthemic title track, this is Dallas Moore at the height of his craft -- a bona fide troubadour continuing down the path, even if the path might look a little different after 2020.

Moore and his band returned to Nashville’s OmniSound Studios — quickly becoming the band’s home court — to track the album, once again tapping the renowned Dean Miller as producer. Moore’s self-proclaimed “Honky Tonk Dream Team Band” consisted of Chuck “Lucky Chucky” Morpurgo (Moore’s guitarist of 25 years), Tim Galloway and Guthrie Trapp on guitar duties, Jenee Fleenor (CMA Instrumentalist of the Year) on fiddle, Chad Cromwell on drums, Steve Hinson on pedal steel and dobro, Gordon Mote on piano and organ, Lex Price on bass, Sweepy Walker on harmonica and Perry Coleman on backing vocals.

“These sessions were the most relaxed and enjoyable of my career,” says Moore. “We had a lot of laughs and grins as the songs took shape and came to life organically and we got most of them in one or two takes, which gave everything a live feel — which I’ve always wanted to capture in the studio. I think this album is my most focused and realized yet and another step in my journey as I kick the can a little farther down the road.”

This live-in-a-room, lightning-in-a-bottle energy permeates The Rain from top to bottom. Tracked in just two days, it’s a snapshot of an ace songwriter and performer rolling with the punches in a year which had plenty to throw. It’s a more than worthy entry in the canon of Dallas Moore, who enters an uncertain 2021 ready to hit the road again, even if it looks a little different this time around.

Alabama-based cosmic country outfit B.B. Palmer have shared their new single "Many Worlds Theory" at Glide Magazine; ahead of a full streaming release of the single marked for March 5th. This marks the first single from the in-progress collection of songs to be known as Krishna Country.

Hailing from the heart of railroad country in Opelika, Alabama, B.B. Palmer have made a name for themselves over the past several years, honing a sound steeped in the traditions of American country music.

The band’s latest offering, Krishna Country, sees the group approaching their craft with a much more expansive worldview — folding traditional Indian sounds into their work and creating a further-mesmerizing brand of ethereal roots music. On paper, it might seem an unexpected or jolting shift in direction, but for B.B. Palmer it’s simply the next step forward in their collective journey.

Make no mistake, this is still country music at its core, but the addition of sitar and horns awash in reverb elevates the overall product to something more, standing on its own as a truly unique output. Imagine if Ravi Shankar recorded with the Byrds backed by Stax’s Memphis Horns, and you’d be pretty close to imagining this Alabama outfit’s forthcoming output.\A native of Theodore, Alabama, Bernard Palmer (the band’s namesake) was raised as a strict Catholic. It wasn’t until a few years ago — following a moment of what could well be described as divine intervention — that he found himself drawn to a belief system far different from that of his youth.\“I found a copy of the Bhagavad Gita,” Palmer recalls. “I can't remember where I found it, if someone gave it to me, or if it just materialized — but I'm thinking it's the latter, because I just can't put a finger on it.”\He pored over the text and found that it resonated with him on a deeply personal level. This newfound enlightenment inspired Palmer to dive even deeper into Indian culture, and he was hooked from the start. He began listening to and studying raga, a classical style of Indian music, and applied these eastern influences in his own songcraft. Krishna Country showcases his discoveries from this newfound styling, blending his honky tonk roots with a yet-untapped well of musical modes and instrumentation from India.

“It was the duality of it all that made it so natural,” he notes while mentioning that the studio had always felt tiresome and tedious prior to this project. “Everything fell into place so effortlessly. That made it unique in the way that we've never had in the recording process before.”

“I thought he had lost his mind,” guitarist Josh “Bucky” McKenzie says of the day Palmer floated the initial concept. “We had no money to do this. Where would we find the money, let alone someone to play sitar, horn players, engineers, extra session players, and how in the hell would we record it?”

McKenzie recalls Palmer seeming unphased by these looming challenges, as if he had already seen the project come together before it even began. Sure enough, things started to fall into place. The group were able to source a sitar player (in Alabama, of all places) on short notice, schedules lined up for their first-choice studio players, and studio staff offered their services pro-bono, excited at the prospect of this new and different endeavor. Krishna Country came together swiftly against all odds, seemingly out of thin air.

From the moment the Bhagavad Gita landed in Palmer’s possession, to the first drafts of these news songs, all the way through studio time and mastering, Krishna Country seemed inevitable despite all the perceived challenges that stood in the way. It’s an undeniably singular output from these Yellowhammer State mainstays, and a worthy entry in the canon of cosmic “American” music — with more than a dash of instant karma backing it up.

Nashville’s Great Peacock will return to the stage in May on a co-headlining tour with fellow Tennesseans Cordovas. The twelve dates will take them through the South — Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia — as well as shows in Cincinnati, Chicago, and Indianapolis. Great Peacock released their latest album Forever Worse Better last year on Soundly Music.

Forever Worse Better, the third full-length release from Great Peacock, is an anthemic soundtrack for a life spent on the move, chasing down brighter horizons somewhere between the blur of truck stops and traffic lights. This is the band's defining album: a record about the three-way intersection between drive, desperation, and determination, rooted in the epic sweep of heartland rock, the harmonized melodies of amplified Americana, and the hooks of guitar-driven pop music. From the swirling keyboards that kickstart "All I Ever Do" to the gospel-like fervor that fills the album's closing statement of self-worth, "Learning to Say Goodbye," Forever Worse Better boldly aims for the same sonic territory occupied by the masters of atmospheric rock & roll. Seminal albums like Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA, U2's The Joshua Tree, and Oasis' Definitely Maybe are all evoked, as is the gritty grandeur of Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps and the modern rumble of The War on Drugs. The result is an album that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, yet still sports a sound that's unmistakably Great Peacock's own.

Forever Worse Better is a soundtrack for those of us who, like them, are on the road to somewhere better, the windows down, the radio cranked high, songs moving through our head at highway speed.

Great Peacock + Cordovas Spring Tour

May 6 - Lexington, KY - The Burl
May 7 - Cincinnati, OH - Riverfront Live
May 8 - Chicago, IL - Fitzgerald’s 
May 9 - Indianapolis, IN - Hi-Fi Annex   
May 13 - Wilmington, NC - Brooklyn Arts Center
May 14 - Charlotte, NC - Heist Brewery
May 15 - Atlanta, GA - Buckhead Theatre
May 16 - Charleston, SC - Charleston Pour House
May 19 - Greenville, SC - Quest Brewery 
May 20 - Columbia, SC - The Senate
May 21 - Savannah, GA - Victory North
May 22 - Asheville, NC - Salvage Station

Wayfaring songwriter Shay Martin Lovette’s story is shaped by an enduring creative pursuit, an inseparable connection with the natural world, and a deep appreciation for the nonpareil musical voices of the past. After releasing his debut in 2018, receiving a plethora of regional accolades, and spending over 100 days playing shows to eager audiences,  he’s back with his sophomore effort.

The new 12-song collection, Scatter and Gather, was produced by Joseph Terrell of North Carolina’s cherished indie roots outfit Mipso (Rounder Records), and features members of the band throughout. 

Lovette’s songs deliver evocative imagery that invites the listener along on one’s life journey, full of incidents, escapades, and moments of clarity. From a canyon to a “cold casino rooftop,” and various locales around the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina, where Lovette is based, The backdrops are ever-changing but a common thread can always be found in the feelings of his colorful characters.

There’s a “coastal queen” in “Fierce and Delicate Things” (which bears a refrain referencing, a bit mysteriously, “the ones that wear the white jeans”). Then there are the ladies honored by song titles reflecting their names–muses Nandina (“Oh Nandina”) and Rose Marie (“For Rose Marie”), a woman living in a coastal town whose “knees fear the winter” and whose mind “runs an ancient race.” There’s also Ricky, a tip of the hat to Lovette’s father, who is noted for his ability to make a harmony shine in “Parkway Bound.” And those are just the folks mentioned over the course of the first third or so of Scatter.

Scatter and Gather finds Lovette’s characters both uncovering new realizations and reckoning with the past, often in the same song. This is most evident in the heartfelt and orchestral “Further From My Demons,” in which the narrator laments feeling “down and out,” searching for salvation but realizing that to get there, they’ll “have to fight like hell.” Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) provides the perfect string section to deliver the emotion that the lyrics convey and it seems at least a bit of serenity is discovered by the song’s end, though, as the narrator’s partner is praised for delivering them “further from the life [they’d] like to forget.” 

Written mostly from a remote, creekside cabin, Scatter solidifies Lovette’s role as a versatile harmonica-wielding wordsmith, effortlessly drifting between the formulas of folk, indie, and roots music. With song structures, instrumentation, and a vocal delivery that, in its more rootsy moments, brings to mind 70s folk heroes such as Townes Van Zandt and Bob Dylan (and Jackson Browne in its poppier moments, such as the stellar lead-off track, the aforementioned “Fierce and Delicate Things”), the album reflects the talents of a songwriter enamored with the craft. A self-described “student of songwriting and stories,” Lovette is as influenced by the written word as he is by songwriters, noting his admiration for Flannery O’Connor, John Cheever, Kurt Vonnegut, and Ron Rash. A lover of nature, he also enjoys beekeeping and gifting others with a bottle of his sourwood honey, which he deems “the best honey in the world” and pays tribute to with the album’s only instrumental number, entitled “Sourwood Honey Rag.

While Lovette’s sound lies somewhere between the Laurel Canyon-set and Appalachian roots music, Scatter and Gather’s introspective tunes and shimmery production are also likely to appeal to fans of modern indie-folk ala Christian Lee Hutson, Fruit Bats, and Mandolin Orange (Andrew Marlin of Mandolin Orange accompanies Lovette on Parkway Bound and Sourwood Honey Rag).

Born and raised in Wilkesboro, NC, home of MerleFest, the esteemed roots music festival, Lovette grew up with admiration of the festival’s origins and performers. The combination of setting and the influence of his father, also a songwriter, inspired Lovette to begin writing his own songs in high school. In 2019, Lovette and his backing band won the band competition at MerleFest and were invited to perform a prime time set on Saturday night of the festival with thousands in attendance.

Unafraid of change and sacrifice (he sold his beloved camper van, which he had named “Freedom,” to fund the recording of Scatter), Lovette is fiercely devoted to songwriting as a daily practice. Reflecting on his process, he notes, “sometimes lightning strikes, sometimes it doesn’t, but if you’re not sitting down with a guitar in hand, it’s never gonna come.” 

“For me, songwriting is therapy,” he adds. “Even if there’s no obvious connection in my lyrics, I’m still singing about feelings, whether it’s loss, a sense of adventure … or running away from something.” He aspires to reflect in his songs a “live for the moment” mindset, an attitude largely inspired by his brother, Chad, who passed away from brain cancer in 2016. Self-dubbed an “eternal optimist,” Chad continues to serve as a positive influence on his brother’s life and musical output (the two performed together and recorded an EP as The Lovette Brothers, which was released shortly after Chad’s death and is available on Bandcamp).

From listening to the depth and expressiveness of Scatter, it’s easy to get the sense that Lovette must have a multitude of stories and songs still ruminating inside him, waiting for the perfect opportunity to emerge. His lyrics even hint at such, as he sings of “unwritten chapters [that] lie within; the pages keep us warm.” Our ears will no doubt reap the benefits as the fruits of his labor continue to burgeon.

Doctor Lo (Faber), the former frontman/guitarist of God Street Wine, has announced a June 18 release for his latest solo LP Claiborne Avenue after sharing the first single "Grey Green Eyes" at Wide Open Country.

Doctor Lo Faber’s music exudes the warmth, grit, and enchantment of New Orleans — a city he’s called home for the past decade. A listen to “Claiborne Avenue,” the title track off his new album, reveals a number of specific NOLA settings: there’s the obvious, the street for which the song is named, as well as the iconic Magazine Street. There’s also a hat tip of sorts to The Neville Brothers, with a reference to the “Pocky Way beat;” and it name-checks Louis Armstrong, Mr. Bienville (Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the “Father of New Orleans”), and Mr. Claude Tremé (for whom the Tremé neighborhood of NOLA is named).

If it sounds a bit like a history lesson in song, well, it is. And this historical focus is fitting, given that Dr. Faber (or Doctor Lo, as he’s known in the music world) has his Ph. D. in American History, is a former history professor, and published a book about New Orleans in 2013 entitled Building the Land of Dreams. “Some of the songs are united by being my experience of living here in New Orleans for about nine years now,” Lo explains. And while he notes that his music “is not New Orleans-y,” one can’t help but almost instantly feel transported to the Crescent City while listening to it.

Seemingly a product of the pandemic – said track speaks of the “tourists [who] left without a trace” – Claiborne Avenue (the song and the album) is both observational and introspective at once. It sees Doctor Lo reflecting on the past through a nostalgic lens with a hint of regret (“I broke the rules and I paid the cost / You know nothing comes free”), and the refrain “Who knows what you might catch in the air” takes on more meanings the longer you listen.

Doctor Lo doesn’t limit his reflections to NOLA, however. He laments the state of our country in the beautiful, string-laden “Kenosha Baby,” singing “This is America where shit is insane / Where some eyes see murder and think ‘how can I gain’.” The stories of people and places are all set to an Americana-tinged instrumental backdrop, with plenty of acoustic guitar, mandolin, slide, and some awesome B3, Rhodes, and piano. It’s a delightful package that reveals more nuances and a richer, more detailed sense of setting with each listen.

Faber has a rich musical history; prior to adding the “Doctor” title to his moniker, he founded legendary jam band God Street Wine in 1988. GSW landed a record deal with Geffen in 1994, and later with Mercury (the latter which he describes as a “really wonderful sort of success-validating experience”). During that time they toured nearly constantly, pausing only to record. Ultimately, GSW hit a wall of burnout and played their farewell show in December 1999.

Faber went on to form the Lo Faber Band, and compose and record the double-CD concept rock operas Henry's House and Friday Night Freakshow in 2001 and 2003 respectively. Meanwhile, the age of social media led to GSW fans congregating in a Facebook group that successfully brought the band back for a series of annual reunion shows beginning in 2010.

When the pandemic hit the US in full force back in March 2020, Doctor Lo took to his YouTube channel to connect. “I’m gonna find another way to connect with people during this time,” he recalls, “I’m gonna make really strange videos with multiple versions of myself in front of a green screen.” While at first he was hesitant to embrace live streaming, by June 2020 he was all in and now continues to broadcast twice a week to his social media pages. “I’ve really enjoyed adapting to this reality,” he says.

Faber played most of the instruments himself for the initial recordings of Claiborne Avenue, and afterwards had some other musicians replace the parts he played “but better,” he humbly notes. The album features a long list of standout players with impressive pedigrees, such as Dave Eggar (The Who, Coldplay, Beyonce) on cello and string arrangements; Jason Crosby (Phil Lesh, Jackson Browne, Tedeschi & Trucks) on piano and fiddle; God Street Wine’s Jon Bevo and Aaron Lieberman on keys and lead guitar; well-traveled New Orleans musician/DJ Marc Stone on slide guitar; Bristol, TN virtuoso Blake Collins on mandolin; and Ted Marotta and Tom Pirozzi, who served as the rhythm section for Ominous Seapods in the 90s, holding down the grooves on drums and bass.

All together, the final product is just what Doctor Lo hoped it would be, something that reflects the “lived experience” of New Orleans from the perspective of a songwriter who still considers himself very much an outsider in the city’s vibrant yet notoriously insular music scene. There may be no tourists on Claiborne Avenue, but there’s a heck of a lot of heart and soul.

Doctor Lo (Faber), the former frontman/guitarist of God Street Wine, has released the second single "Ship" from his upcoming LP, as well as a crowdsourced music video for the track which premiered at Glide Magazine. Claiborne Avenue is due out June 18.

Doctor Lo Faber’s music exudes the warmth, grit, and enchantment of New Orleans — a city he’s called home for the past decade. A listen to “Claiborne Avenue,” the title track off his new album, reveals a number of specific NOLA settings: there’s the obvious, the street for which the song is named, as well as the iconic Magazine Street. There’s also a hat tip of sorts to The Neville Brothers, with a reference to the “Pocky Way beat;” and it name-checks Louis Armstrong, Mr. Bienville (Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the “Father of New Orleans”), and Mr. Claude Tremé (for whom the Tremé neighborhood of NOLA is named).

If it sounds a bit like a history lesson in song, well, it is. And this historical focus is fitting, given that Dr. Faber (or Doctor Lo, as he’s known in the music world) has his Ph. D. in American History, is a former history professor, and published a book about New Orleans in 2013 entitled Building the Land of Dreams. “Some of the songs are united by being my experience of living here in New Orleans for about nine years now,” Lo explains. And while he notes that his music “is not New Orleans-y,” one can’t help but almost instantly feel transported to the Crescent City while listening to it.

Seemingly a product of the pandemic – said track speaks of the “tourists [who] left without a trace” – Claiborne Avenue (the song and the album) is both observational and introspective at once. It sees Doctor Lo reflecting on the past through a nostalgic lens with a hint of regret (“I broke the rules and I paid the cost / You know nothing comes free”), and the refrain “Who knows what you might catch in the air” takes on more meanings the longer you listen.

Doctor Lo doesn’t limit his reflections to NOLA, however. He laments the state of our country in the beautiful, string-laden “Kenosha Baby,” singing “This is America where shit is insane / Where some eyes see murder and think ‘how can I gain’.” The stories of people and places are all set to an Americana-tinged instrumental backdrop, with plenty of acoustic guitar, mandolin, slide, and some awesome B3, Rhodes, and piano. It’s a delightful package that reveals more nuances and a richer, more detailed sense of setting with each listen.

Faber has a rich musical history; prior to adding the “Doctor” title to his moniker, he founded legendary jam band God Street Wine in 1988. GSW landed a record deal with Geffen in 1994, and later with Mercury (the latter which he describes as a “really wonderful sort of success-validating experience”). During that time they toured nearly constantly, pausing only to record. Ultimately, GSW hit a wall of burnout and played their farewell show in December 1999.

Faber went on to form the Lo Faber Band, and compose and record the double-CD concept rock operas Henry's House and Friday Night Freakshow in 2001 and 2003 respectively. Meanwhile, the age of social media led to GSW fans congregating in a Facebook group that successfully brought the band back for a series of annual reunion shows beginning in 2010.

When the pandemic hit the US in full force back in March 2020, Doctor Lo took to his YouTube channel to connect. “I’m gonna find another way to connect with people during this time,” he recalls, “I’m gonna make really strange videos with multiple versions of myself in front of a green screen.” While at first he was hesitant to embrace live streaming, by June 2020 he was all in and now continues to broadcast twice a week to his social media pages. “I’ve really enjoyed adapting to this reality,” he says.

Faber played most of the instruments himself for the initial recordings of Claiborne Avenue, and afterwards had some other musicians replace the parts he played “but better,” he humbly notes. The album features a long list of standout players with impressive pedigrees, such as Dave Eggar (The Who, Coldplay, Beyonce) on cello and string arrangements; Jason Crosby (Phil Lesh, Jackson Browne, Tedeschi & Trucks) on piano and fiddle; God Street Wine’s Jon Bevo and Aaron Lieberman on keys and lead guitar; well-traveled New Orleans musician/DJ Marc Stone on slide guitar; Bristol, TN virtuoso Blake Collins on mandolin; and Ted Marotta and Tom Pirozzi, who served as the rhythm section for Ominous Seapods in the 90s, holding down the grooves on drums and bass.

All together, the final product is just what Doctor Lo hoped it would be, something that reflects the “lived experience” of New Orleans from the perspective of a songwriter who still considers himself very much an outsider in the city’s vibrant yet notoriously insular music scene. There may be no tourists on Claiborne Avenue, but there’s a heck of a lot of heart and soul.

Memphis-based bluegrass collective Graber Gryass have officially released their second LP, Spaceman's Wonderbox. The LP follows 2020's Late Bloom, and was recorded during the same sessions.

With Spaceman’s Wonderbox, Graber Gryass stretches out, pushing genre limits even further than the traditionally-based Late Bloom.

“We planted ourselves within bluegrass tradition with our first record,” says the band’s namesake and principal songwriter, Michael Graber, “with the intention of branching out and pushing boundaries on our second.” This set of 12 original songs takes influence from a wide-open set of senses and left-of-center benchmarks: 60s pop and psychedelic music, the folk revival, 70s art rock, early jazz, world music, and introspective singer-songwriters, all performed with acoustic instruments. The new record, according to Graber, is “like a radio that’s been left on a volunteer station you hear really late one Saturday night—that’s the concept.” “Spaceman” is what Graber’s bandmates call him, and you can explore their wild, spoken-word release Nectar Drops if you want to follow that line of inquiry even further.

Even the instrumentation goes out on a limb: take traditional bluegrass instruments, add such elements as a homemade bass erhu, harmonium, 12-string and gypsy-jazz guitar, bouzouki, dulcimer, and harmonica as texture.

Now, it’s really the songs that matter on Spaceman’s Wonderbox. “Gravity String” opens the album, fusing Late Bloom’s tradition with the open range of this new collection. “It Was Always You” is a mystical, generational ode sung by Graber’s adult daughter, Rowan Gratz, who couldn’t sing most of her life due to Cystic Fibrosis (thank science for helping the family). “Every Changing Season” outlines the healing role of nature. “River Vow” depicts a spontaneous marriage proposal. “River Bottom, Real Slow” is about the feeling of jumping into the mighty Mississippi River. “Sloppy Seconds” is “popcorn” music; intermission fingerpicking. “Lucky Penny” finds the band at their vaudeville best. “Broke Folk Yolk” and “Your Body’s Border” blend folk forms with transcendental yearning. Both “There’s a Buzz in Every Bottle” and “Drinking Again” weigh the high cost of low-watt living. Then, for some late night lava-lamp, velvety fun, the record ends with a piece of “Strawberry Cake”.

About the Band: 

Graber Gryass is an all-original, acoustic jam-grass band from Memphis, Tenn. The band is hitting the festival circuit as soon as safe.

Take an award-winning writer, have him craft songs, and then layer in some of the regions hottest players, including a Winfield-winning banjo champion, the musical director of Public Enemy, members of such bands as Rumpke Mountain Boys, and others—and you have Gryass.

This six-piece band can sing harmonies like the Mamas and the Papas, stretch out and jam like the Dead or New Grass Revival all while keeping audiences moving and inspired.

As the live music industry stirs back to life after the pandemic, independent touring musicians facing personal crises are about to get a helping hand. Starting today, a new Atlanta-based nonprofit called The Goodmood Fund will begin accepting applications for emergency relief grants of up to $2,000 to independent touring artists nationwide who are facing financial hardship due to unforeseen emergencies such as a death in the family, natural disaster, serious illness and theft of gear.

The Goodmood Fund’s grants can be used for rent or mortgage payments, home repairs stemming from natural disasters, medical costs not covered by insurance, funeral expenses and other related costs, as well as replacement of stolen or damaged equipment not covered by insurance.

Atlanta musician Jack Shaw founded Goodmood in 2019 as a for-profit touring agency serving early-stage career musicians with tour bookings and other marketing services. Shaw has booked hundreds of live shows across the U.S. and U.K. for both his own band The Head and the more than a dozen other artists he booked through Goodmood. 

As the global pandemic upended the live music business for most of 2020 and 2021, Shaw saw a need for a much larger support net, one that could help these same artists in times of personal crisis. So, in early 2021, he transitioned Goodmood from a booking agency to a nonprofit fund with the resources and first-hand experience to serve the unique needs of the independent touring community.

“The life of an independent touring musician is tough to begin with,” Shaw says. “Long stretches of driving, crashing on couches, microwave burritos, scrounging for gas money, all to pursue their dream. And when disaster strikes, that dream can come crashing down in an instant. We’re here to help make sure that doesn’t happen.”

To qualify for a grant, artists must meet past and future touring criteria and receive at least 50% of their income from touring, among other criteria detailed in Goodmood’s application guidelines and process.

Goodmood also announced that Four Sigmatic has signed on as a partner supporting Goodmood’s efforts, and that Outfront Media is providing outdoor marketing support to help raise awareness among artists and donors. Pollstar is also lending marketing support to raise awareness.

Goodmood is actively seeking additional partners, and any organization interested should contact Jack Shaw directly at [email protected].

The Goodmood Fund is a member of The Giving Back Fund’s family of foundations. The Giving Back Fund is a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN: 04-3367888) that encourages and facilitates charitable giving by providing philanthropic consulting, management and administrative services while operating as a flexible, convenient vehicle for establishing individual foundations and fiscally sponsored projects.

Atlanta's Lindsay Jarman has released the third single from her upcoming debut LP The Gallery (due out August 20). Under the Radar premiered the track, praising it as "gorgeous and introspective...exhibits a candid beauty that came from laying pain open to the world."

With Laurel Canyon folk vibes that mix and mingle with a Nora Jones-esque, jazz-influenced delivery and production, Lindsay Jarman’s music exudes a depth and maturity far beyond what one might be inclined to expect from a debut full-length album. But to hear her tell it, the songs are less creative endeavors and more a means of healing; of processing life’s painful moments and putting them out into the universe, enabling her to view them much like one admires the paintings on a gallery wall.

“There were extremely painful moments of my life that I was able to get some catharsis for through writing certain songs on this record … they definitely added to who I’ve become as a person,” Jarman says. “Patience is passion tamed, and the rapture that prevails the willful processing of trauma holds healing and gratification in its palm. This record offered that hand to me, and I took it. I found shelter there.”

The songwriter spent time in New York, writing jingles for a score house, before relocating to Georgia and enrolling in UGA, completing her studies in Arts, Entertainment, and Media Management several years ago. While she attributes much of her musical background to her father, she also nods to the value in self-discovery and individuality, enlisting the help of friends in the Atlanta music scene and connecting with producer/engineer Damon Moon to create The Gallery.

“I reached out to Damon, we went and had coffee, and it was an immediate connection,“ Jarman says of Moon. “The emotion and care he showed the music was something I had never had.”

This harmonious relationship is evident in the stellar production of the album’s 10 tracks, which explore themes of self-identity, generational trauma, and lessons in love and loss, all set to a light, comfortable pace and instrumentation so superbly executed that it’s easy to get lost in the textures and overlook the somewhat heavy topic matter.

The lone, intimate acoustic that aptly kicks off lead-off track “Cherry Glow” might lead one to expect The Gallery to be a stripped back, solo affair, but Jarman and her talented cast of players quickly blow those expectations out of the water, elevating the song to a transportive affair, with muted trumpet, wispy piano embellishments, and dreamy backing vocals recalling the jazzy folk-pop of Carla Bruni and Linda Perhacs.

If the stunner “Go Child” is Jarman’s attainment of self forgiveness, the snappy, soulful “For Air” is the movement ever forward, but not without a much needed acknowledgement of the beauty in brokenness.

An album of life lessons wouldn’t be complete without the quintessential break-up song, and on the same token, it takes a proper love song to come full circle. From that respect, the jazzy “Rue Collective” serves as Jarman’s rumination on a toxic love, comparing it to the irritating piece of gravel in her shoe, and the subsequent track, “Parachute,” has her finding what she describes as the first healthy love in her life. Still, Jarman recognizes that even the most trusting of relationships need a soft landing pad in case things do become unsteady.

Jarman is backed by a combo worthy of best supporting cast honors, with some of Atlanta’s most talented virtuosos lending their talents to The Gallery’s walls: Chris Case on keys, James Barrett on drums and percussion, Justin Powell on horns (his trumpet a true delight on the smooth, jazzy “In Your Genes”), and Madison Laughridge on backing vocals. Moon contributes bass in addition to engineering, mixing, and mastering duties, pulling it all together in a package that reveals more nuance with each listen.

The perfect accompaniment for your morning coffee or your evening glass of wine, The Gallery invites you to be enveloped by its intricate masterpieces. “Even though some of the songs were extremely difficult to bring into the studio, it is still a space in my life that I will go back to like a gallery, like hanging them up on a wall,” notes Jarman, describing the therapeutic nature of the album’s creation, comparing it to “a photo to remember this very special point in my life that influenced me.”

The darkest times often make the most beautiful art, and The Gallery couldn’t be a truer testament to that.

Acclaimed for consistently capturing audiences’ hearts, Elijah Ocean is widely known for his distinct vocals, catchy melodies, and razor-sharp storytelling. He’s opened for legends like Dale Watson and emerging stars such as Charlie Crockett, and backed up like-minded talents Zephaniah OHora and Michaela Anne. He’s played to packed houses from the Mercury Lounge to the Troubadour and is a regular at festivals like Stagecoach, Americanafest, and SXSW. He’s been praised as an artist to watch in Rolling Stone, Saving Country Music, LA Weekly, Uproxx, Wide Open Country, and beyond. Since his first live show, Ocean has worked his way up from total unknown to respected journeyman through his fertile songwriting and irresistible onstage swagger. With a recent move to Nashville under his belt, Ocean and his new album Born Blue (Aug 13th) are primed to take the country music scene by storm.

After over a decade of relentless touring and five previous albums of Americana-tinged singer-songwriter albums, Born Blue is Ocean’s most existential work to date. Self-reflection has been a consistent theme in his writing, but with age comes lived experiences, and his commentaries on timeless themes of devotion, divorce, and drinking have become more tangible and heartfelt. His gift lies in faithfully constructing melodies and lyrics that are rooted in the traditions of the genre, but are undeniably modern and fresh at the same time. Taking cues from artists like Clint Black, Alan Jackson, George Strait, and Dwight Yoakam, Ocean’s aim is to take the baton from the forbearers of the straightforward American storyteller model and extend its reach to old and new fans alike.

Ocean paid his dues on the country music circuit starting in 2009 when he left his home state of Maine for Brooklyn in 2009, and then switched coasts in 2014 when he moved to Los Angeles. He began working as a bass player in dance halls, honky tonks, and casinos, playing country standards and learning all of the ’80s/’90s line dances. These influences can be heard throughout the new album, with the music sounding both contemporary and nostalgic.

Born Blue took shape over the course of two years, whittled down from a batch of 30 songs Ocean had crafted. He reached out to Dwight Yoakam sideman and Los Angeles Americana staple Brian Whelan to produce the album. It seemed the perfect match — but creative differences led Ocean to take full control of the project early in the process in order to maintain his vision for the final product. Ocean also took a slight detour along the way, connecting with Peter Donovan of All the Real Girls to record an album for their side project, The Rose Petals, who released the jangle-pop, post-Americana album American Grenadine in early 2020. While not the neo-traditional country Ocean is known for, that album also received heaps of praise, with the Bluegrass Situation pointing out comparisons to the “acoustic 12-string from The Byrds, synthesizer from the ’80s records of Bruce Springsteen, and Beach Boys harmonies.”

The journey to Born Blue has now culminated with twelve songs that are the perfect blend of honky tonk swagger and deeply honest self-reflection. From the upbeat fiddle-filled opening track “Living to Love You” to the regretful pining of “The Ice Machine” to the Peter-Pan-syndrome-testimony of “Thirty Five,” Ocean is a perceptive storyteller of the highest caliber. Add to that the perfect blend of electric guitar, pedal steel, piano and drums, and you get a thoroughly cohesive neo-traditional country album — sure to satisfy listeners old and new.

Taking cues from 60s and 70s musical influences such as John Prine, Leonard Cohen, Warren Zevon, Todd Snider, Willie Nelson, and even Prince, Toledo native Ben Stalets addresses the thorns in his side on new record, Everybody’s Laughing, both personal and worldly. The songs were not written with an overarching theme in mind, but when it came time for the album art concept, it was the “cult leader” vibe that gave him a sense of what the underlying vision is:

 Collective suffering allows us to collectively suffer less.

The album is a reference to a quote from Mark Twain’s social commentary book, Following the Equator: “The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”

“The way I look at it,” says Stalets, “everybody is laughing, which means everyone is suffering— we’re all in this together.”

Fort Lowell Records has announced a November 5 release for the compilation album Luz de Vida II: A Compilation to Benefit Homicide Survivors, and released Gabriel Naïm Amor's "La Nuit Pour Nous Deux" today on all streaming platforms. The album was featured at Consequence and Glide Magazine this week, and will be released in partnership with Homicide Survivors, Inc and JFCS of Southern Arizona to coincide with the All Souls Procession Weekend of November 5-7.

The album also features contributions from Calexico, Dr. Dog, L'Orange, Amos Lee, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and more (full track list below).

All proceeds raised from Luz de Vida fundraising efforts will go toward services for advocacy, support, and emergency assistance for families impacted by homicide.

VINYL PRE-ORDERS AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY AT ZIA RECORDS.

LUZ DE VIDA II  —  TRACK LIST
1. Calexico — "Wash (La Luz Brillante)"
2. Tracy Shedd — "Chasing Time"
3. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah — "Thousand Oaks (Luz de Vida)"
4. Juarez — "Ghosts in the Room"
5. L'Orange — "A Rich Life & Longing"
6. Dr. Dog — "Loneliness"
7. Gabriel Naïm Amor — "La Nuit Pour Nous Deux"
8. Acorn Bcorn — "Scraps"
9. XIXA — "Crystal Road (Luz de Vida)"
10. The Resonars — "It's the Same"
11. Hannah Yeun — "All That Matters is the Wind"
12. Soda Sun — "Grape Juice"
13. Amos Lee — "El Camino (Solo Acoustic)"

Singer-songwriter Mabilene has officially released her debut LP The Other Side today. Produced by Jordan Lehning (Rodney Crowell, Lydia Luce, Jessie Baylin), the album marks the first solo release for Mabilene since parting ways with acclaimed folk band The Battlefield.

A soulful siren born and raised in Houston, Texas, Mabilene weaves lush tales of love, heartache, and self-discovery in her Jordan Lehning-produced debut The Other Side. Born out of the ashes of her former folk band The Battlefield, the album reflects the many facets of Nashville – equally rooted in modern orchestral Americana and retro country-pop. Effortlessly beautiful vocals, recalling Linda Ronstadt at one turn, Margo Price at the next, take center stage in the 10-song collection, set to exquisite strings and boosted by an expert rhythm section.

Surrounded by country and top 40 pop music as a child, Mabilene’s parents’ record collection introduced her to the legends she now cites as influences: Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris. Their songs, along with her father’s love for Springsteen’s Born in the USA and The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, inform the writing and production on The Other Side, as chamber arrangements meet pop sensibilities for a stunningly rich tapestry of sound that exudes a depth and maturity rarely present in a debut album.

Paying tribute to the past while sounding fresh and modern isn’t an easy task for a songwriter, yet Mabilene and band manage to do so flawlessly on The Other Side, thanks largely to the steady yet innovative hand of Lehning, whose production credits also include Rodney Crowell, Jessie Baylin, Andrew Combs, and Elise Davis. As Mabilene recalls, working with Lehning was a dream that seamlessly came to fruition after she contacted him upon hearing his work on Lydia Luce’s sublime album, Azalea. “With Jordan, there wasn’t a lot of ego present,” she says, describing the recording process at his “The Duck” studio in East Nashville as experimental and playful, with Lehning serving as a “mad scientist” of sorts, nurturing Mabilene’s ideas and expanding on them with unexpected yet meticulously placed flourishes such as oboe (played by Grace Woodworth) and French horn (Jennifer Kummer). “I think that’s why my music sounds like it does,” Mabilene notes, crediting Jordan’s deliberate touches, along with her own fondness for the Wrecking Crew collective of musicians who contributed to a multitude of hits in the 60s and 70s.

Album opener “Against the Wall” serves as a fitting introduction to both Mabilene as a songwriter and as a human searching for connection. Believing she’d “regret every word that goes unsung,” she beckons her object of affection to join her in her topsy-turvy travels, but cautions that the walls she’s learned to erect can be a bit of a challenge to navigate.

Describing herself in the song as one who “learned to blossom slow,” Mabilene notes that’s the case with most anything she’s been involved in; “Everything has taken me longer than what society expects, and that’s actually what keeps me going – there’s always that voice in your head that says ‘you’re this age, and you’re not there’ … that’s just never been true for me,” she says, noting that writing that particular lyric helped her realize taking your time with things is not only acceptable, but even something to be hailed as a strength.

This introspective, intentional mindset is evident throughout the album – Mabilene consoles a wounded friend, encouraging her to step out of the shadows and make her voice heard in the catchy “Carolina;” reminds herself that she’s worthy in “Running Circles;” and delivers a sweet, sincere testament to true love in “Partner in Crime.” Things get a bit more contemplative in “Old Magnolia,” an acoustic-led meditation on generational trauma and familial expectations. The perfectly paced waltz leads nicely into a nostalgic, bittersweet visit back to the West Coast, as standout “California” is not so much a love letter to her former home as it is a means of saying goodbye. As Mabilene, now based in Nashville, explains, “Every time I’d come back home after spending time on the road, as we would drive into [Los Angeles], I’d begin to feel my world getting smaller and smaller. A city that had energized me in the past was now draining. One autumn day as I was walking my dog, I started singing this song. I packed up and left a few weeks later.”

Sprinkled amongst the originals are two covers that reflect Mabilene’s roots as well as her vocal aptitude – a beautiful take on “Keep Me From Blowing Away,” written by Paul Charles Craft and made popular by Linda Ronstadt in 1974, and Nancy Wilson’s Grammy-winning hit “(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am.” The latter in particular is an ambitious undertaking that shows Mabilene and band at their very best; crystalline vocals are buoyed by steady rhythms, and the string section delivers a dreamy accompaniment that swoops and swells in all the right places.

“Another Vanished Year” is the album’s apt closer; the cinematic fade-in makes way for Mabilene’s pristine vocals, establishing a lovely setting before unveiling a sense of resignation.

Glockenspiel and strings lighten the mood a bit, and Mabilene reminds the listener that despite the clouds, “the sun is always shining in the sky somewhere.” Nonetheless, accepting the present means also acknowledging that suffering can feel all-consuming. When she sings, “until then, you’re stuck here in your vanished years,” one might assume she’s referring to the past year-and-a-half or so, but she actually wrote the song in 2014 for a friend going through a divorce. As she explains, the song now serves as a sanctuary of sorts; “Having gone through 2020, it turns out it was a gift to our future selves.” It’s quite the gift for the listener, as well.

Outlaw country singer Zach Willdee combines energetic performances with his raw talent to bear a voice bigger than his body and stories older than his boots. After nearly a decade of honing his chops on the live circuit, Willdee plans to release his debut LP Heart That Ain’t Tame on May 6.

Influenced heavily by the depth and honesty of the greats, Willdee conveys simple truths through dynamics in his music and writing. His voice and lyrics, echoing from the golden age of country music, are often compared to Johnny Paycheck and Waylon Jennings, writing from the depths of his soul about life’s trials and tribulations –– bearing the good, bad, and ugly through stories and songs that gain deeper meaning with each listen.

“I write and perform my music to help myself mentally,” he says. “As a form of therapy, you could say –– and hope that I can help someone relate and know there’s someone else out there sharing their experience.”

Inspired by writers like Steve Earle, John Prine, and Merle Haggard, he began writing his own songs at the age of 16. Willdee later apprenticed under Darrell Scott (songwriter for The Dixie Chicks, Travis Tritt, Beyoncé, Zac Brown Band, and others) in 2016, which ultimately sparked him to move to Nashville to pursue his own career singing and writing country music.

Growing up in Massachusetts and writing beneath the shade of the New England pines, Zach Willdee began his musical career busking on the street corners of Provincetown, Massachusetts at just 14 years old. By age 16, he earned the name “The Barefoot Brother.” Lifeguarding on the Atlantic coast during the day and street performing at night he reflects, “They called me that because I didn’t wear any shoes when I performed on the tarmac. They thought it was the funniest thing that this barefoot lifeguard was playing music.”

It wasn’t long before Willdee moved from playing on the tarmac to playing local bars, with lines of people wrapping around the block, waiting to get in. But long before that, Willdee would attend the annual Joe Val Bluegrass Festival in New England with his father. He fondly remembers jumping in on a picking circle at age 12, and then realizing he was playing with the SteelDrivers and Chris Stapelton. “That was before he had hair,” Willdee laughs. “He was still bald with glasses back then.”

It’s not uncommon to see members of the audience singing along to Willdee’s songs at his shows –– and they haven’t even been released yet! The slow rollin’ rambler has been captivating audiences for over a decade and shows no signs of putting the brakes on anytime soon.

Listeners can look forward to tracks layered with the talents of musicians like Adam Duran of Kelsey Waldon’s band (electric and acoustic guitar), American Aquarium’s Neil Jones (pedal steel), Nashville local legend and country singer Tim Bolo (bass), Lucy Cochran (fiddle, backup vocals,) and Chris Weisbecker (drums, producer, and engineer) as well as his own. The multi-talented musician plays guitar, mandolin, bass, and harmonica as well. Having already staked his claim as a regular performer at the iconic American Legion Post 82 and Dee’s Country Lounge, Willdee’s debut release Heart That Ain’t Tame sees this outlaw poised to reach even greater heights.

South Georgia country/roots band Few Miles South have released their latest single "Doggone" on all streaming platforms today. The single marks the group's first new output since releasing Wiregrass in 2020, and continues their exploration of blending modern country music with traditional bluegrass flourishes, and features fiddle work from Michael Cleveland.

Few Miles South is a female-fronted, country and roots group created by south Georgia-lifer Blake English and Los Angeles-native Tori Lund. The two met in 2014 while performing in a Los Angeles church. Tori, a classically-trained singer and music teacher, and Blake, a multi-instrumentalist, Grammy-nominated producer/engineer and owner of Southern Fried Studio, connected over a shared love of country music. They began to write and record songs with intentions to shop them to other artists, but after a couple of years bonding with their catalog, the duo felt compelled to wrangle up some local musicians and form their own band. Eager to pursue music and ditch the city, Tori and Blake quit their jobs and headed south.

Few Miles South offers a refreshing take on the traditional genre, while sticking with the "tried and true country backroads." Inspired by artists like Hank Williams, Jerry Reed, Emmylou Harris and The Band, their thoughtful songs, nostalgic twang and knee-slappin' grooves attract listeners across generations. Their first single, "On Down the Road," charted overseas and was awarded "Best International Music Video" in 2017 by the HOTDISC Country Music Awards. In 2018, they released a five-track EP, Might Could, which features renowned pedal steel guitarist Bob "Boo" Bernstein (Tanya Tucker, Emmylou Harris, Dwight Yoakum). A year later they followed up with a full length album, Californ I Aint. In 2019 they opened for artists like Junior Brown and The Kentucky Headhunters and earned a coveted slot at Stagecoach on Nikki Lane's curated stage. Their newest country/bluegrass EP, Wiregrass, was released in March 2020 and features collaboration with Grammy-winning fiddler Michael Cleveland. Few Miles South does it all in-house; handling all their writing, producing, and recording together deep in the Georgia pines.

A Tampa native and North Carolina resident, Christie Lenée took First Place at the International Fingerstyle Guitar Championship in 2017, was voted Acoustic Guitarist of the Year by England’s Music Radar in 2019, and was named Named “One of the Best Acoustic Guitarists in the World Right Now” by Guitar World in 2021. Even though her last release, Circle Round the Sun, was a best-of, her new record, Coming Alive, with its iconic guitar hooks and powerhouse vocal performances, feels like a giant leap forward. And that jump was made with eyes wide open.

She decided to make everything bigger, brighter, and more electric this time. The first line of the first song, the title track (“I’ve got a feeling deep inside”), tells you everything you need to know: Lenée’s sixth album is a chronicle of joy and hope, of self-confidence and empowerment, of renewal and light.

Denver-based country artist Cowboy Dave (Wilson) has announced an April 14 release for his latest LP, Venture South. The album was produced by John Macy and features an all-star cast of country studio musicians alongside Wilson's ace Colorado-based touring band.

Venture South, the debut full-length album from Cowboy Dave Wilson, paints a 10-song picture of the American West — from 19th-century cowboy tales to the plight of the modern day working man. While hard-swingin’ honky-tonk is a descriptor many country artists might shy away from in the current music landscape, Cowboy Dave embraces the term with an exclamation mark. With the backing of Grammy-winning producer John Macy and an all-star cast of musicians, this new album is a triumphant culmination of over a decade spent honing chops in country dancehalls across the country.

These are songs that perfectly capture the ruggedness, honesty and sense of adventure associated with western folklore. Wilson’s soulful voice infuses each track with an authentic country vibe, while his clever lyrics bring a fresh twist to traditional sounds. Telecaster, fiddle and pedal steel further elevate the melodies, alongside a dash of trumpet for good measure. Whether it’s the dust-kicking dancehall anthems like "287" or "This Kind of Living,” or an understated ballad like "Sandhill Girl" or "Whiskey Tonight", Venture South shows Wilson’s range and isn't short on spirit.

Much of the inspiration for the record stemmed from a revisited comment by cowboy author and artist Will James (1892-1942), who noted, “a cowboy is a man with guts and a horse.” In fact, this directly inspired the track “Guts and a Horse,” featuring trumpetist Gabriel Mervine – a tune which feels like it could fit right in on Marty Robbins’ Gun Fighter Ballads and Trail Songs.

"If there was a theme to this album, it would be 'Tales of the American West,'" Wilson notes. "I greatly identify with the Bakersfield Sound – Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Wynn Stewart, among others." Wilson wears this influence proudly in his output, while also pointing to a love of Texas Swing as a source of inspiration.

Recorded over a handful of sessions between Colorado and Texas, Venture South’s studio musicians came from rich backgrounds in the aforementioned influences. Macy hand-picked a group of legendary players associated with both the Bakersfield and Texas sounds, which – coupled with his top-notch touring band out of Colorado – brought Wilson's vision for the project into focus. The initial Colorado session — later dubbed the "Bakersfield session" — included Jay Dee Maness (The Byrds, Buck Owens, Gram Parsons, Ray Price) on pedal steel, Eugene Moles (Merle Haggard) on telecaster, and Jim Christie (Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam) on drums. The Texas session wasn’t short on legendary names, either, featuring Tommy Detamore (Johnny Bush, Moe Bandy, Robert Earl Keen, Ray Price) on pedal steel and Hank Singer (Alan Jackson, George Jones, Ray Price) on fiddle. With the added talent of Colorado-based Zach Boddicker (telecaster), Scott Johnson (upright bass) and Andy Sweetser (drums), the result is an all-star affair of country and western music in its purest form.

A native of Nebraska, Wilson spent the better part of seven years (2002-2009) touring much of the midwest and south with country outfit FortyTwenty, which saw an album reach the No. 12 spot on XM Satellite Radio’s X-Country chart and earned an invitation to Nashville to record songs for CMT’s “New Voices, No Cover” series. When the band took an extended hiatus in 2009, Wilson relocated to Colorado, setting off on his own and recording the first Cowboy Dave EP, Saddle Up, Pal, followed by 2014's Driven Man.

Touring in support of their output, the Cowboy Dave Band has spent much of its time in Texas. The state has become a regular stop for the group, including shows at the historic Gruene Hall, Floore’s Country Store, as well as legendary Austin watering hole the Continental Club.

Venture South is an album that pays homage to the vistas of the west as well as the history of the country music genre, melding Wilson's heartfelt songwriting and storytelling with top-notch musicianship for a truly memorable listening experience. It’s an album made for nights spent in a dimly-lit, smoky barroom just as much as it is for those who long for the wide open spaces and freedom found in life on the trail — so saddle up and head out.

Tulsa, Okla. Americana singer-songwriter Joey Frendo has shared his latest single "Wild Pilots" today, ahead of an April 21 release for his debut full-length LP Bound for Heartache (Horton Records). Frendo shared the first single from the album at PopMatters in February, and "Wild Pilots" premiered at Americana Highways earlier this week.

Frendo is a man on a mission: to tell stories that speak to the human experience with authenticity and passion. His grit will pull you in, and you’ll stick around for a while once you’ve caught an earful of his lived-in blue-collar storytelling. After building his brand on the soulful hooks and detailed arrangements of 2021’s Stone Mason’s Son EP, Frendo returns in 2023 with his debut full-length offering Bound for Heartache.

Equal parts alt-country, Petty-esque jangly guitar anthems, and bonafide Red Dirt twang, Bound for Heartache marks a natural progression for Frendo as he settles into his craft, showing that his new home region has rubbed off on him for the better. He’s not afraid to show his range here — from pedal steel and barroom piano-laden rompers “Fool Hearted Woman” and “Building on Quicksand” to the driving rhythms and pop hooks in “Get What You Get” to the forlorn balladry of “Wild Pilots” and “Nebraska Rain” — each track standing on its own while never once feeling misplaced or out of sequence.

“I think more than anything, this record speaks on the stories we tell ourselves,” Frendo notes of the album's overarching theme. “It captures pieces of that dialogue we constantly have with ourselves — how life is always unfolding, leaving you to shade in the details, and how those stories affect where we end up and how we interact with others along the way.”

“Old-Fashioned Country Singer” is perhaps a high watermark on the new album, with Frendo calling out: “I think Ol’ Waylon said it best / when he asked If Hank really done it like this,” posing an existential question of how and why we do what we do in life. These introspective, character-driven narratives are a hallmark of Frendo’s output, unpacking emotions and experiences which listeners from all walks of life can relate to.

With a heart rooted in his native Michigan and a mind that’s steeped in Southern musical tradition, Frendo is a perfect representation of the ever-evolving greater Oklahoma music scene that brought us beloved fellow acts like John Moreland, Turnpike Troubadours, John Fullbright, and more. He relocated to Tulsa in 2020 during the pandemic, shortly after losing his mother — crediting in hindsight that the one-two punch of major life events inspired this batch of songs. Getting back into the studio to record them over a year later proved to be a cathartic experience.

“I honestly felt like I was writing the best songs of my career, and finally starting to really see what I wanted to be as a songwriter,” he recalls. “I was grateful to be making music with people again, full stop, but also to be doing so in a new city with new people who I was genuinely ecstatic to be working with.”

Fully embracing this self-discovery, Frendo has now firmly planted his roots in Tulsa and found his identity as an artist. He’s a songwriter’s songwriter, pouring his soul into each and every line, and Bound for Heartache is a triumphant showcase of that commitment. This is but the latest chapter in a story that’s still being written; this is his life’s craft, being methodically chipped away by an artist hard at work earning his keep.

“I try to be a student of it, to serve it as best I can,” he affirms of his passion for the trade. “It’s the thing I know I was put here to do.”

Atlanta-via-Athens, Ga. singer-songwriter Adam Klein has officially released his new LP Holidays in United States today via Cowboy Angel Music.

The deeply socio-political album was produced by Bronson Tew and features musical contributions from Matt Patton and Jay Gonzalez of Drive-by Truckers, Spencer Thomas of Futurebirds, and a slew of other ace studio musicians.

Oh I’ve known the power and her lonesome whistle’s glory / our story’s yet to unfold /

Delicate flower bending and broken and bowed / in need of tending, in need of sunlight /

of water from a cool mountain stream / of a new American dream

With these poetic, longing words, singer/songwriter Adam Klein offers a hymn to the promise of America and closes out his powerful new record, Holidays in United States, out April 7, 2023 on Klein’s Cowboy Angel Music.

The path to these lines is paved with themes which many artists have explored amidst the chaos of these most intense past few years — tragedy, disillusionment, an unparalleled global pandemic, societal divisions, and the like. Yet the strength of songwriting, lyrical detail, humanity, vulnerability, and lush production serve to confirm Klein’s reputation as a songwriter to be reckoned with. Combined with the guiding hand of Klein’s longtime producer/collaborator Bronson Tew and the backing of an all-star studio band, Holidays takes listeners on an expansive sonic journey across multiple styles.

His first overtly socio-political collection to be released, the songs’ commentary takes the state of American society to task in certain regards, holding only a few punches. Yet feelings of heartbreak and devastation are tempered by signs of hope and promise. Consisting initially of a double album of material, Klein culled it down to a tight, focused eight songs which clock in as a powerful full-length record filled with some of the veteran songwriter’s most astute and moving lyrics to date.

In the instant classic opener “Blood on My Hands”, the narrator wonders about personal and collective responsibility and complicity when it comes to racial injustice, offering a range of perspectives from the well-intentioned (“I didn’t think I was blind / I loved all mankind”), to deflection (“I was a thousand miles away / I didn’t care, I didn’t know / somebody else should’ve stopped the blow”) to the stone cold (“shake down somebody else to help / it’s just the way that the cards were dealt / shouldn’t come as no surprise”). The chorus, though, finds Klein recognizing our common humanity and leaning in to the fight: “I’m learning how to love for the very first time / Now I can see your destiny’s wrapped in mine / the fog is liftin' I can see the shore / finally found something worth fighting for”.

“Wait til They Come Knockin’” addresses the stacked deck of the American justice system (“Justice is just a word that lives in a smoky back room where you don’t wanna take the heat”) with a reference to Dylan’s “Desolation Row”: “They’re selling postcards of the hanging / at every county fair / fibers of whip and rope upon the floor where the beauty pageant girls twirl every perfect strand of hair”, Klein sings, reminding us that the shadows of our past remain closer than we may imagine.

In another nod to one of his musical heroes and the tradition of protest in folk song, listeners may recognize two references to Neil Young’s “Ohio” on Holidays. “Ohio: Revisited” memorializes the fateful day (“She wore flowers on her jeans/ felt concrete against her knees / the whole world heard her screams / then licked a soft ice cream / chocolate sprinkles on the cone”) ending a series of stanzas with Young’s refrain “four dead in Ohio”.  And further connecting the song with the Civil Rights era, the chorus asks: “Are we back in Money, Mississippi? Did we ever go? Now we kill ’em with the boot and the knee / How did we get so low?”

The other instance may be found in the epic number “I-20”, a conversation between a father and daughter on the way to a protest for racial justice. There, Klein alludes to Young’s opening line (“Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming”) in the chorus.

The album concludes with a reflection on the myths and lore of America, in the yearning and hopeful tones of “Bright Rails Shine”, a mystique-filled travelogue upon the rails of the varied vastness of this great land.  

The origins of the record took root nearly a decade ago, although Klein hit something of a creative wall initially. “I wrote a song early on that never felt right — either too overt or non-poetic — which dealt with gun violence in the wake of the shooting of Laquan McDonald by police in 2014,” he recalls. “And though it didn’t take, it set my radar to be attuned to such issues for this collection of songs.” Klein had drafts of “Blood on My Hands” and “Wait til They Come Knockin’” as far back as 2015. He tinkered with these ideas, never felt they were finished, and set them aside.

Fast forward to the historic late spring and summer of 2020. The 50th anniversary of the Kent State shootings. George Floyd. Social protests amidst a newly emerged global pandemic. All the while, Klein was settling into a new home with his wife and daughter.

“It was a strange time,” he notes. “On the one hand, COVID was ravaging the world and our country, we were engaging in an overdue racial reckoning and jolted into registering, at long last, how far we still have to go to achieve social and racial equity in the U.S., all the while living in a highly polarized time. On the other hand I was enjoying an idyllic time with my family in our new home, taking walks in the neighborhood and local parks, and far removed from the anguish and grief inflicted by the virus.”

Essentially in quarantine and concerned with the need to protect the health of his family, Klein watched the coverage of the protests and the watershed moment unfold on the news. Compelled to speak out and participate in the movement for racial justice, he thought again of the unfinished songs dealing with these ever-present issues of racial inequities, gun violence, and more, and determined to complete the task.

Finding a burst of inspiration between his full time work and dedication to family life, he began writing new material to sit alongside these earlier drafts. There were other unfinished songs, too, which didn’t address social issues, but which he realized sat alongside the newer ones as stories of hurting and unfulfilled American lives.

Klein’s literate songwriting and active years of touring pre-pandemic and fatherhood have earned accolades from Americana and folk press, multiple albums on the Euro Americana chart, an official performance at Folk Alliance, and shared stages with a long list of revered songwriters and bands including James McMurtry, Josh Ritter, Steep Canyon Rangers, Shovels & Rope, Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck, Okkervil River, and more.

To be sure, this long-anticipated album has seen its share of delays, but will finally have its opportunity to serve as a document of these historic times. “These issues may not dominate the news cycle at the moment,” he notes. “But they will continue to rear their head as long as we remain isolated in our silos and fail to recognize that America achieves its potential only when all people are welcome to thrive here and contribute to a healthy, diverse society.”

“There’s a great Leonard Cohen quote about his song ‘Democracy’”, Klein says, “in which he said, in part, 'I didn’t want to start a fight in the song. I wanted a revelation in the heart’. I love that idea. Cohen sought to transcend self and identity to speak for all humankind. This album may be more heavy-handed at times, but the sentiments are sincere. These are intense times, and while I’m as exasperated as anyone by the madness of the age, I’m trying to be a force for good, or at least somehow useful. I don’t know that this album will elicit a revelation of the heart, but through it, my heart is revealed, and I send it out with the hope that it may inspire not anger or despair, but a desire to work for a better, more just society.”

Joey Frendo is a man on a mission: to tell stories that speak to the human experience with authenticity and passion. His grit will pull you in, and you’ll stick around for a while once you’ve caught an earful of his lived-in blue-collar storytelling. After building his brand on the soulful hooks and detailed arrangements of 2021’s Stone Mason’s Son EP, Frendo returns in 2023 with his debut full-length offering Bound for Heartache.

Equal parts alt-country, Petty-esque jangly guitar anthems, and bonafide Red Dirt twang, Bound for Heartache marks a natural progression for Frendo as he settles into his craft, showing that his new home region has rubbed off on him for the better. He’s not afraid to show his range here — from pedal steel and barroom piano-laden rompers “Fool Hearted Woman” and “Building on Quicksand” to the driving rhythms and pop hooks in “Get What You Get” to the forlorn balladry of “Wild Pilots” and “Nebraska Rain” — each track standing on its own while never once feeling misplaced or out of sequence.

“I think more than anything, this record speaks on the stories we tell ourselves,” Frendo notes of the album's overarching theme. “It captures pieces of that dialogue we constantly have with ourselves — how life is always unfolding, leaving you to shade in the details, and how those stories affect where we end up and how we interact with others along the way.”

“Old-Fashioned Country Singer” is perhaps a high watermark on the new album, with Frendo calling out: “I think Ol’ Waylon said it best / when he asked If Hank really done it like this,” posing an existential question of how and why we do what we do in life. These introspective, character-driven narratives are a hallmark of Frendo’s output, unpacking emotions and experiences which listeners from all walks of life can relate to.

With a heart rooted in his native Michigan and a mind that’s steeped in Southern musical tradition, Frendo is a perfect representation of the ever-evolving greater Oklahoma music scene that brought us beloved fellow acts like John Moreland, Turnpike Troubadours, John Fullbright, and more. He relocated to Tulsa in 2020 during the pandemic, shortly after losing his mother — crediting in hindsight that the one-two punch of major life events inspired this batch of songs. Getting back into the studio to record them over a year later proved to be a cathartic experience.

“I honestly felt like I was writing the best songs of my career, and finally starting to really see what I wanted to be as a songwriter,” he recalls. “I was grateful to be making music with people again, full stop, but also to be doing so in a new city with new people who I was genuinely ecstatic to be working with.”

Fully embracing this self-discovery, Frendo has now firmly planted his roots in Tulsa and found his identity as an artist. He’s a songwriter’s songwriter, pouring his soul into each and every line, and Bound for Heartache is a triumphant showcase of that commitment. This is but the latest chapter in a story that’s still being written; this is his life’s craft, being methodically chipped away by an artist hard at work earning his keep.

“I try to be a student of it, to serve it as best I can,” he affirms of his passion for the trade. “It’s the thing I know I was put here to do.”

Acclaimed musician Gregory Dwane, revered for his chameleon-like adaptability and shapeshifting prowess in the musical landscape, is proud to announce the release of his much-awaited sophomore album, "Nostalgia for Nothing," due out on November 17th. The album is a deep dive into Dwane's life, encapsulating the essence of his vibrant journey through the music scene from the gritty New York punk of the '90s to the star-studded collaborations in Los Angeles.

With sobriety as his steadfast companion, Gregory has traversed the globe, creating music with icons such as Amy Ray and penning memorable jingles. His work has resonated with and amplified the voices within the riot grrrl/queercore movement, leaving an indelible mark on the industry.

After his self-titled debut album, which harmonized the authenticity of Tom Petty with the wit of Joe Walsh, "Nostalgia for Nothing" represents Gregory's evolution as an artist. It's an album that narrates his personal chronicles, celebrates the bonds of family, and reflects on the exhilaration of youth. Gregory invites listeners to take solace in these shared human stories, presented through his lens.

This album stands as a raw exposition of Gregory Dwane's soul, a musical diary that speaks to the influence of our past on our present and future. It is an offering of alt-country brilliance, providing comfort in these tumultuous times and reinforcing the idea of music as a sanctuary from life's uncertainties.

Praise for Gregory Dwane:

• "Dwane brings a rollicking and smoky vibrato to his compositions where thick bleeding guitar tones welcome back late 70’s/early 80’s dive bar affability." - Glide Magazine
• “Dwane’s compositions are lush, highlighting the world-worn experience in his voice.” – Adobe & Teardrops
• “A strong and well-considered debut album with excellent production.” – AmericanaUK
• “Bridges southern-tinged alt-country with a hard-edged Americana.” – Holler
• “So much potential for Dwane to go off exploring his sound further – though it’s pretty good just the way it is!” – Maverick Country
• “Unabashed alt-country that righteously shitkicks, rocks, and drops into confessional songwriting at its most earnest.” – Sound and Soul Online

"Nostalgia for Nothing" promises to be a milestone in Gregory Dwane's already illustrious career, a testament to his artistry and the enduring power of music.

This Friday marks a significant event in the music industry with the much-anticipated release of "Lionhearted Woman," the latest single by renowned singer-songwriter Shay Martin Lovette. Slated for release on January 12th, this single not only represents a new achievement in Lovette's burgeoning career but also serves as an introduction to his eagerly awaited EP, "True As They Come," which is scheduled for an April 26, 2024, release.

Building on the success of his previous hit, "Dark November," "Lionhearted Woman" further demonstrates Lovette's remarkable talent and his profound connection to his musical roots. This track embodies Lovette's signature fusion of soul-stirring melodies and insightful lyrics, set to captivate both audiences and critics.

Produced by the talented Joseph Terrell of Mipso, "Lionhearted Woman" transcends the boundaries of a typical song, offering a narrative-rich auditory journey. Lovette skillfully blends sophisticated folk elements with contemporary sounds, crafting a listening experience that is both fresh and evocative of nostalgia.

The EP, recorded in the tranquil settings of Studio Homestead and the Rubber Room, features collaborations with notable artists such as Alexa Rose and contributions from members of Mipso and Hiss Golden Messenger. These collaborations enrich "Lionhearted Woman" with a diverse range of musical influences, ensuring a deep and unforgettable auditory experience.

"Lionhearted Woman" stands not merely as a single but as a testament to Lovette's dedication to producing soulful and impactful music. We invite your readers and listeners to join Shay Martin Lovette on his journey leading up to the release of "True As They Come."

Available on all major streaming platforms from January 12th, the single offers a preview of the profound artistry that will be fully revealed in the upcoming EP.

Peter Donovan, the acclaimed musical storyteller from Seattle, Washington, is thrilled to announce the release of three original songs written for the much-anticipated 2024 film Red Right Hand. These songs, which showcase Donovan's unparalleled narrative style and genre-spanning talent, are available starting today, along with the film's global release.

Donovan, who has previously led successful projects such as All The Real Girls and The Rose Petals, has embarked on this venture, highlighting his capacity for crafting music that complements cinematic storytelling. His latest work for Red Right Hand, starring Orlando Bloom and Andie McDowell, represents a collaboration with a tight-knit group of Seattle musicians, emphasizing the power of teamwork and shared musical vision.

WATCH THE TRAILER FOR RED RIGHT HAND HERE.

The song “Sucker Punched,” recorded under the moniker Cascadia Falls, is a vibrant old-time string band piece co-written and produced with Bradley Laina. It features a lively fiddle and a compelling rhythm that promises to get listeners tapping their feet. “Spark,” the film's end-credits theme, is a collaborative effort with Dune Butler. It's an expansive tune that leans more pop and would also fit perfectly in an episode of Killing Eve. The song's haunting narrative is complemented by an intricate mix of guitar and strings, with harmonies that underscore the film's message of hope and resilience.

Completing the trio, “When I Get There,” another collaboration with Butler and performed by Kate Dinsmore, draws inspiration from the soulful sounds of 1970s gospel music. Its rich vocals and uplifting melody provide a perfect conclusion to Donovan's contributions to the film's soundtrack, echoing a longing for peace and tranquility.

These songs are more than just music for a film; they are a testament to the creative synergy and friendship among the artists involved. Peter Donovan's leadership and vision have brought together a diverse group of talents, resulting in tracks that not only enhance the cinematic experience of Red Right Hand but also stand as a powerful reminder of the impact of collaborative artistic endeavors.

Looking ahead, Peter Donovan is set to release his sophomore album, Community Theatre, later in 2024, promising more of his signature storytelling and musical exploration.

Praise for Peter Donovan:

    “This soon-to-be hit-maker has a knack for Smithereens/Marshal Crenshaw sprinkled power pop.” – Glide Magazine

    “Artist You Need To Know.” – Ditty TV
    “Vibrant shiny high tempo power pop, with smart lyrics and, yes, maybe just a touch of Josh Ritter.” – AmericanaUK

For fans of Bright Eyes, Wilco, The Wallflowers, Gin Blossoms, and Tom Petty, Peter Donovan's latest work offers a fresh yet familiar sound that resonates with listeners across genres.