Tag: Americana music

New album release: Western Chill – Robert Earl Keen

Robert Earl Keen’s laid back opus Western Chill is accompanied by a play-along songbook, full album performance video, and a 92 page graphic novel. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

Americana legend and model Texan Robert Earl Keen retired from touring in September of last year but his new release Western Chill finds the songwriter alive and well and, seemingly, very relaxed. While Keen is still making public appearances—he was just officially honored on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives and popped into Dallas’ newly reopened Longhorn Ballroom to play a tune with Old Crow Medicine Show—Western Chill makes it very apparent that retirement suits him. For most artists, dropping an album of fourteen new songs would be enough, but, proven time and time again, Keen is not most artists. (IVPR, 2023)

Currently, the only way to hear Western Chill is to purchase the entire box set. Thankfully, the box set has it all, including a 92-page graphic novel inspired by the album, a play-along/sing-along songbook for all fourteen songs, and a DVD of the Robert Earl Keen Band performing the entire new album at Keen’s Snake Barn studio space. The only thing “chill” about the release is the songs themselves. For the foreseeable future there will be no download or streaming links, so fans are encouraged to dive into the entirety of Western Chill the way it was intended: kick back, crack a cold one, sing along, and enjoy the vibe.

Pre-sales are over, but fans can now purchase Keen’s Western Chill package for immediate delivery and do not forget to stay up to date—rumor has it, REK has already finished another record.

Western Chill track list:
Western Chill
Blue Light (feat. Bill Whitbeck)
Waves (feat. Brian Beken)
Hello Stranger (feat. Kym Warner)
The City (feat. Brian Beken)
Let’s Valet
Balmorhea
Marfa
Bone and Flowers (feat. Bill Whitbeck)
Sweet Summer Rain
Mister Mockingbird (feat. Bill Whitbeck)
Mr. Blues on the Run
Walking On
Rippling Waters

The Western Chill vibe is packed with enough surprises to keep even the most seasoned fan guessing what is coming next. The opening title track—an instant Keen classic in the easy-loping vein of “The Front Porch Song,” “Gringo Honeymoon,” and “Feelin’ Good Again”—sets the mood for the whole album, followed by back-to-back original stunners sung and written by fiddle/guitar player Brian Beken and bassist Bill Whitbeck. If variety is the spice of life, Western Chill is the Silk Road to chill with more contributions are heard from Beken and Whitbeck, as well as compositions by the rest of the band. This has all been documented on the accompanying video because true to the “featuring” tag on the album cover, this really is a REK Band affair.

New album release: This Far South – Tommy Prine

Tommy Prine’s upcoming debut album This Far Suth will be out June 23 via Thirty Tigers. Photo: Google

Tommy Prine’s debut album This Far South, coming June 23, 2023, is not only a long-awaited introduction but a testimony to Prine’s 20s and the loss, love, and growth that has defined them. Co-produced by a close friend and kindred musical spirit, Ruston Kelly, and beloved Nashville engineer and producer, Gena Johnson, the album is rich and dynamic from cathartic jams to nostalgic storytelling. This year, alongside his own runs of headline shows, Prine opened for Tyler Childers on his Send In The Hounds Tour in London. He was also named one of Amazon Music’s 2023 Breakthrough Artists to Watch. (IVPR, 2023)

Like the rest of the songs from Prine’s upcoming debut This Far South, “Reach The Sun” feels very personal; a journal entry observation set to music. The theme does not end there. More often than not, Prine spins his narrative with positivity and hope, no matter how distant those feelings seem at the start. “‘Reach The Sun’ is about learning to ground yourself and doing something that you love is part of the brighter things of life,” he says.

An emotionally complex but universally accessible debut, This Far South—co-produced by Ruston Kelly and Gena Johnson—brings together a sonic patchwork of musical influences to help tell the story of each song. Inspirations from groups like Outkast or The Strokes or Bon Iver sneak into This Far South as well, but Prine always sounds like Prine; honest in his emotions and impactful with his message.

Fans can hear “Reach The Sun” at this link and This Far South can be pre-ordered or pre-saved ahead of its June 23 release, and the album’s previously-released title track can be streamed or purchased here. His tour schedule is available online. 

This Far South track list:
Elohim
Crashing Again
This Far South
Reach The Sun
By The Way
Mirror and a Kitchen Sink
Boyhood
Some Things
Letter to My Brother
Cash Carter Hill
I Love You, Always

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Rodney Rice’s new self titled album out next month

Rodney Rice’s self titled album will be released May 19, 2023. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

Rodney Rice was surrounded by music growing up, whether on radio, kitchen tape deck, or television. When he was about 12, he started playing the guitar. Rice worked for a while on oil and gas rigs in Texas. One night he talked to Jason McKenzie, (longtime drummer for Billy Joe Shaver), and McKenzie pointed him to the Congress house studio in Austin, where Rice made his first two albums, Empty Pockets and a Troubled Mind and Same Shirt, Different Day. His first album found success on the Freeform Americana Radio chart, while his second album reached number 30 on the Americana Music Association albums chart, after debuting at number 9 on the European Americana Chart. For his eponymous third album, Rodney Rice, Rice found a studio, through album notes, the Bomb Shelter, in Nashville, and finally reached out to them amid the pandemic. (IVPR, 2023)

Rice recently released a new song from his upcoming self-titled album; a rambunctious country shuffle called Rabbit Ears Motel. Echoing classics from the likes of Pure Prairie League, the Supersuckers, Jason & the Scorchers, and Jimmy Buffett’s first couple of albums, Rabbit Ears Motel is about so much more than a place to stay in Colorado. Telecaster licks jump around pedal steel fills between Rice’s refrain of “Checking out when I check in to the Rabbit Ears Motel.” Rabbit Ears Motel is part of Rice’s third full-length album, the upcoming Rodney Rice. Out on May 19, Rodney Rice finds Rice traveling over a wide terrain of emotion; from the death of beloved grandparents and the loss of a cherished pet to the grueling monotony of the road and the joyful celebration of marriage. Rice’s warm, gritty vocals, his ingenious and canny lyricism, and his ability to lay down a melody move listeners emotionally and physically, encouraging them to get up and dance even as they let the lyrics settle into their hearts.

Rice knows just how to capture the fleeting glimmers of an emotional moment in life and turn them into songs that evoke our own feelings of despair and hope; loss and love. He delivers those lyrics with a knowing nod and wink, creating memorable characters in his songs whose imperfections remind us of folks we know. As he says, “Music is a common language that reaches all and brings people from worlds apart together.” Rice cannily matches music with lyrics, pairing a glimpse of a world turned upside down with a jaunty New Orleans jazz swing melody or an ode to young love with a lively country shuffle.

Fans can stream or purchase Rabbit Ears Motel and pre-order or pre-save Rodney Rice ahead of its May 19. Rabbit Ears Motel also has an accompanying music video by director Joshua Shoemaker which follows Rice on a time-warped, neon-soaked journey through the lyrics, and characters, of his brand-new tune.

Rodney Rice track list:
How You Told Me So
Get To Where I’m Going
Nothing To Lose
Rabbit Ears Motel
Roll River Roll
Little Pieces
Set Em Up
Wonder Where I Came From
Every Passing Day

Catch Rodney Rice on tour:
April 30 – Santa’s Pub – Nashville, TN *
May 19 – Broadway Roxy – Denver, CO
May 20 – Trinidad Lounge – Trinidad, CO
May 26 – Swing Station – Laporte, CO
June 16 – Reed’s Package Liquors – Laramie, WY
June 17 – the press. – Steamboat Springs, CO
June 23 – Soulcraft Brewing – Salida, CO
June 24 – Benson’s Tavern and Beer Garden – Salida, CO
July 7 – The Bull Pin Bowling Alley & Sports Bar – Estes Park, CO
July 8 – The Speakeasy – Longmont, CO
July 14 – Stagecoach Saloon – Franktown, CO
August 5 – Stagecoach Saloon – Franktown, CO
Sept 1 – Stagecoach Saloon – Franktown, CO
Sept 9 – The Speakeasy – Longmont, CO

*With the Ice Cold Pickers

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Logan Halstead’s hauntingly honest debut album Dark Black Coal

Logan Halstead proves age is just a number on debut album Dark Black Coal, due out May 5, 2023. Photo: Google

The success of Logan Halstead’s first single Dark Black Coal has allowed him to build a fan base through YouTube, touring, and opening for artists like Zach Bryan, Charles Wesley Godwin, Town Mountain, and many more. With the record released over a year after he recorded the album, OurVinyl came into his life at the perfect time. In a collaboration with OurVinyl, Logan released a taste of his upcoming project with a four-song EP that has amassed over 120,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. The wisdom Logan Halstead has accrued at just 19 years old can only be measured by those decades older than himself. (IVPR, 2023)

Born in Kentucky and raised in West Virginia, it is no surprise that Halstead draws influence from like-minded peers Tyler Childers and Sturgill Simpson, but he has also found inspiration in the work of Nicholas Jamerson and Cole Chaney. “All these folks mentioned have laid a path and shown that it’s okay to be from these parts; we’re not so looked down on anymore,” says Halstead. The aforementioned contemporaries have given him the ability to be proud of who he is, and that has led him to be a driving force in the scene of young artists from the Appalachian region.

The hauntingly beautiful Dark Black Coal debuts on May 5, 2023 via Thirty Tigers. Fans can hear the first track “Kentucky Sky” and pre-order and save the album.

Halstead drew inspiration for the song by admiring the scenery of Kentucky outside his back window at the time. Simple, yet powerful, Halstead softly fingerpicks at his guitar accompanied by broad strokes from a fiddle in the background as they paint a picture about keeping a loved one close. Describing the song in his own words Halstead states, “I was picking around in the kitchen looking out the window and saw two cardinals playing on the fence out back. I thought back to a summer in Crittenden, Kentucky, where there were rolling hills and cow pastures. It seemed like the sun never wanted to set there. That’s how I came up with the title.”

Halstead wrote and released his first song Dark Black Coal at just 15 years old and has already amassed over 5 million views on YouTube. Rothman was immediately moved by Halstead’s lyrics and knew instantly how he wanted to produce the proper sound for Halstead’s stories to be told. Rothman states, “Logan’s songs are far older than he is. His voice hit my heart muscle hard, there is so much living in the resonance of his singing but so much youth at the same time.”

In speaking about his experience with the recording process, Halstead states, “It was a great experience. Lawrence is top-notch. They made me feel comfortable just to go in and do what I do, and to get to record in a place like that is a dream come true, especially for a holler kid.”

Dark Black Coal track list:
Good ol’ Boys with Bad Names
The Flood (written by Cole Chaney)
Man’s Gotta Eat
Dark Black Coal
Mountain Queen
Kentucky Sky
Coal River
Far From Here
1952 Vincent Black Lightning (written by Richard Thompson)
Uneven Ground
Bluefoot

Logan Halstead 2023 Spring Tour Dates:
Thursday, May 4 – Nashville, TN – The Basement
Friday, May 5 – Lexington, KY – The Burl
Saturday, May 6 – Pineville, KY – Bell Theater
Thursday, May 11 – Newport, KY – Southgate House
Friday, May 12 – Louisville, KY – Zanzibar
Saturday, May 13 – Huntington, WV – The Loud
Wednesday, May 17 – Buckhannon, WV – Strawberry Music Festival
Friday, May 19 – Richmond, VA – The Camel
Saturday, May 20 – Charlotte, NC – Evening Muse
Sunday, May 21 – Atlanta, GA – Eddie’s Attic
Saturday, May 27 – Slade, KY – The Pit House
June 9-10 – Pineville, KY – Laurel Cove Music Festival

New album release: Something From Nothing – Chris Williams and Kid Reverie

Something From Nothing is the new album from Chris Williams and Kid Reverie. It will be out March 3, 2023. Photo: Google

Chris Williams’ ability to weave different sounds into a seamless whole comes naturally. He grew up near Greensboro, North Carolina, and his father, Allen Calhoun, was a bluegrass musician who played a little bit of everything. Williams was playing banjo by the time he was ten, and he and his father traveled constantly to bluegrass festivals where his father played. In his 20s and 30s, he played with rock bands and heavy metal bands, honing his instrumental chops and even taking the drums. He moved into jazz under the influence of Steely Dan’s Aja. Though he got away from music for a few years, he started buying recording equipment and eventually set out to make an album. Williams combines lyrical ingenuity with a gift for finding the just-right melodic vibes in which to wrap his words. He and Kid Reverie recently announced their upcoming album Something From Nothing, due out March 3, 2023. (Chris Williams/Kid Reverie, 2023)

Kid Reverie is out of Boulder, CO, featuring the voice and writing of Steve Varney, guitarist/banjoist for Gregory Alan Isakov and former leader of the band, Glowing House. In September 2018, Varney officially introduced Kid Reverie with a rock record both tender and furious. As and artist with several aesthetic interests, Kid Reverie has ebbed and flowed throughout time with a full length self-titled LP, Kid Reverie and many singles releases that cover a broad spectrum of genres. Steve’s body of work speaks for itself; honest, brilliant songwriting and an ever-reaching thirst for all things musical.

Born from their initial collaboration, the pair eventually co-wrote the twelve songs that became Something From Nothing. Co-produced by Williams and Varney and mastered by Varney, the two played every instrument on the album—with the exception of Michael McKee who joins in on drums for five songs and Ayda Varney who plays cat toy sounds on a tune.

Chris Williams and Kid Reverie shared the first listen from Something From Nothing, the ebbing and flowing “Half a Mile.” Written a few tunes into Williams’ and Varney’s time writing songs together, “Half a Mile” was a marked point of exploration for the pair, entering a mix of time signatures and tempo changes. “Every writing session we had, I was blown away by Steve’s in-depth knowledge of theory, song structure and catalog of hundreds of songs and examples within each at his fingertips,” remembers Williams. “Very useful when reaching for ideas and inspiration.”

Fans can stream or purchase “Half a Mile” now and pre-order or pre-save Something From Nothing ahead of its March 3 release.

Chris Williams and Kid Reverie hope the songs on Something From Nothing inspire others in their art: “not to be afraid to take chances musically.” Their music illuminates the struggles of the human soul, lighting a path between the shadows and light that leads from despair, fear, and loss to hope, courage, and love.

Something From Nothing track list:
Morning
Fog
Half A Mile
Himalayan Hills
Warning Bell (feat. Kid Reverie)
Asleep
Pretenders
Gambit
Dappled Grey

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Stella Prince gracefully examines rejection on new single

Closing Doors is the eighteen year old songwriter’s new single. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

This has been a groundbreaking year for Stella Prince. Her first single that went to radio, Crying on a Saturday Night, charted on the Americana Singles Chart, was played on over one hundred radio stations internationally, and was the most added song on folk radio in March of 2022. Her debut music video for the song has received over 70,000 views on YouTube alone, and has received support from legendary outlets such as CMT, DittyTV, Heartland, The Country Network, and Discover Music Videos. She has been featured over fifty times in various articles by outlets such as Americana Highways, Country Music Views, Teen Look, Think Country, NY State Music, Cowgirl Magazine, and Music City Magazine, among others. Her debut EP was released on July 22 and charted on both the Alternative Country Charts, Americana Albums Chart, and the Official FAI Folk Charts. (Stella Prince, 2022)

“Facing rejection can be a constant huge hurdle,” says wise-beyond-her-eighteen-years songwriter Stella Prince. Her newest single, “Closing Doors” examines rejection and challenging times “like a door closing in your face.” Produced by Professor Louie at Woodstock Records in Hurley, New York, Closing Doors follows Prince’s recent output of country-inspired folk-pop music, her comforting voice a reassurance for listeners, no matter what door is closing at any given moment. 

“In these difficult and challenging times, it is hard to maintain a sense of hope and possibility,” says Prince. “I decided to write this song, ‘Closing Doors,’ because so many of us are struggling with loss or hardship. Like the lyrics in the song, ‘hope is the only thing that keeps me going/when all the fear of life’s commotions spins around and brings me down.’” Prince’s airy and enchanting vocal delivery reaffirms a true sense of authenticity and soul ever-present in her releases thus far; a characteristic that will surely have her beyond up-and-coming status in no time.

Girls’ Life Magazine premiered Closing Doors, calling her “the artist you *need* to stream this season.” Fans can listen to “Closing Doors” here.

Touring has been another breakthrough for Stella in 2022. She just finished her first international run in the UK, and will soon be embarking on an 18-city tour of the Southwest. She has already performed at some of the world’s most prestigious venues, such as London’s The Bedford and Spice of Life, New York’s The Bitter End and Arlene’s Grocery, and Nashville’s famed Bluebird Cafe. A full list of tour dates and ticket information is available online.

Posthumous Tony Joe White album Smoke from the Chimney

Tony Joe White’s Smoke from the Chimney is set for May 7 release. Photo: google

Across five decades as a performer and storyteller, Tony Joe White—a.k.a. “The Swamp Fox”—left an indelible mark on American music. His catalog offers indisputable classics such as “Polk Salad Annie” and “Rainy Night in Georgia” and his songs have been recorded by Ray Charles, Kenny Chesney, Waylon Jennings, Tim McGraw, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley, Dusty Springfield, and Tina Turner. On Friday, May 7, Smoke from the Chimney, a nine-song album of never-before-heard Tony Joe White tunes, will be released on Easy Eye Sound. Produced by Dan Auerbach and rounded out by Nashville’s most seasoned studio musicians, Smoke from the Chimney started out as several unadorned voice and guitar demos from White’s home studio before being transformed into full band arrangements harkening back to the albums he recorded in the late 60s and early 70s in Nashville and Muscle Shoals—just as he was emerging as an internationally recognized songwriter and recording artist. (IV-PR, 2021)

On Friday, NPR/World Cafe gave fans their first listen of “Boot Money,” a gritty, thumping ode to keeping a little bit of extra scratch hidden away. “Boot Money” comes accompanied by an animated video from director Robert Schober which colorfully places White and Auerbach in the recording studio to kick off the tune before following along while White lives out the song’s storyline. Fans can see the video for “Boot Money” at this link and pre-order or pre-save Smoke from the Chimney here.

After his father’s death in 2018, Jody White, White’s son and manager, started transferring his father’s multitrack home recordings to digital files. Looking back on the moment he unearthed the demo of “Smoke from the Chimney,” he recalls a mix of happiness, gratification, and shock. As he continued to find other songs that did not make an album, he moved the material into a separate folder. Within a year, those select recordings would evolve into Smoke from the Chimney. Jody says that even in those basic tracks, that definitive Tony Joe White groove instantly stood out. “He always finds a tempo and a pocket that is exactly right. And it’s a little bit different than anybody else would choose themselves,” he says. Jody believes that his father would love the way Smoke from the Chimney turned out.

Smoke from the Chimney Track list:
Smoke from the Chimney
Boot Money
Del Rio, You’re Making Me Cry
Listen to Your Song
Over You
Scary Stories
Bubba Jones
Someone Is Crying
Billy

“Smoke From The Chimney” is more than a faithful tribute to one of the great Americana musicians and national treasures, performed by an ensemble who capture the DNA of Tony Joe White’s songs with beauty, warmth, and reverence.” – NPR’s Bruce Warren