Tag: premiere

LISTEN: Hannah Juanita, “Hard Hearted Woman”

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Artist: Hannah Juanita
Hometown: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Song: “Hard Hearted Woman”
Album: Hardliner
Release Date: June 11, 2021

In Their Words: “Well, I’m glad I don’t feel like a ‘Hard Hearted Woman’ anymore! But that is how I felt coming out of my last relationship. Turning 30, moving back to Tennessee, and leaving the life I had built out West behind definitely had me feeling alone… but it was the good kind of alone. I may have felt hardened to love, but I was so ready and excited to do my own thing and make music. I remember well the night I wrote this song. All my friends were out honky-tonkin’ around Nashville, but I felt heavy-hearted and went home because it was time to sit down with my guitar and get this song written. It had been rolling around in my head for too long.” — Hannah Juanita

Photo credit: Jody Domingue

WATCH: The Lovestruck Balladeers, “Rivka Road Rag”

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Artist: The Lovestruck Balladeers
Hometown: New York, Detroit, Chicago
Song: “Rivka Road Rag”
Album: The Lovestruck Balladeers

In Their Words: “We formed a strong bond working with filmmaker Horatio Baltz on our first two videos, which we shot in-person long before the pandemic. Last year, during lockdown, we started talking about a third collaboration. However, given the circumstances, it wasn’t obvious how we would go about it. We were spread out from coast to coast and from Canada down to Mexico, so the idea of a traditional shoot was off the table. After a fresh listen to the album, Horatio pitched us an idea for one of the band’s original compositions, Dalton Ridenhour’s ‘Rivka Road Rag.’ We readily agreed. Months later, when we could sit back and enjoy the final cut, we were all thoroughly charmed. With his artistry, Horatio once again had added a dimension to our music beyond what we’d envisioned ourselves.” — Jacob Sanders, The Lovestruck Balladeers

Photo credit: Aidan Grant

WATCH: Michigan Rattlers, “The Storm”

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Artist: Michigan Rattlers
Hometown: Petoskey, Michigan
Song: “The Storm”
Album: That Kind of Life
Release Date: May 19, 2021
Label: Massasauga Records

In Their Words: “‘The Storm’ was the first song written for this new record, and in a lot of ways it set the tone for the songs that would follow. The storm is a beginning. I wanted to write about that feeling of encountering something that you know will change you forever. ‘It’s hard not to think I was born right there’ is the touchstone line of the song for me. There’s everything before and there’s everything after. As far as the construction of the song, this is a good example of how we were much more deliberate in our approach to arranging and recording this record. The songs on Evergreen are very loosely arranged and we approached those songs in the studio as we had been playing them live. On That Kind of Life, we spent considerable time on arranging and writing our parts. We never played these songs live before recording them which gave us freedom and the ability to really craft these songs in the studio.

“When it came to the video, we wanted to showcase a relationship, but not give away the whole story. We wanted to show snapshots of two people coming together and coming apart, the ebb and flow of a relationship. It feels like you’re waiting for something happen. You’re waiting for that storm to come. And I think when you hear or read the words ‘the storm’ you’re anticipating something bad will happen. But we approached the storm as love itself. Love is everything at once and that’s how I thought of the storm when writing the song and how we wanted to interpret it in the video. The video was directed by Allyson Bernstein, shot by Andrew Gulledge, and assisted by Ramie Cronkhite. It was the first project we did after the height of COVID and was a real collaborative effort.” — Graham Young, Michigan Rattlers

Photo credit: Andrew Gulledge

LISTEN: Loose Cattle, “He’s Old, She’s High”

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Artist: Loose Cattle
Hometown: New Orleans / New York City
Song: “He’s Old, She’s High”
Album: Heavy Lifting
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: Low Heat Records

In Their Words: “It’s great when your friend gets you. But when the friend who gets you is also one of New Orleans’ most celebrated songwriters, can he maybe get you too well? When Loose Cattle’s longtime friend Paul Sanchez (multiple time NOLA songwriter of the year and ex-Cowboy Mouth) told us he’d written a song for the band, we pondered that for half a second. But by the end of the first listen, we threw our arms around him and the song, and turned it into something that we hope would make Porter & Dolly, Johnny & June and John Doe & Exene all equally proud. Even though Kimberly and Michael stopped being a couple years ago, they’re still odd. This one is for all the perfectly mismatched people out there.” — Loose Cattle

Photo credit: Zach Smith

WATCH: Bendigo Fletcher, “Sugar in the Creek” (Blackacre Barn Session)

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Artist: Bendigo Fletcher
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Song: “Sugar in the Creek” (Blackacre Barn Session)
Album: Fits of Laughter
Release Date: August 13, 2021
Label: Elektra Records

In Their Words: “Playing ‘Sugar in the Creek’ live feels like floating compared to some of our other songs that probably require more attention to recreate. There are a few key and tempo fluctuations that we sort of arrive at and navigate as the song continues, and we just have to rely on staying in the moment together to hit those transitions naturally. Looking back, I think it was written under the spell of a band called Relatively Clean Rivers, whose only known album consists of those types of songs that just kind of start and end before you remember again that you’re in a human body.” — Ryan Anderson, Bendigo Fletcher

Photo credit: Jimmy Fontaine

LISTEN: Merle Monroe, “Shelby Tell Me”

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Artist: Merle Monroe
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Shelby Tell Me”
Album: Songs of a Simple Life
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: Pinecastle Records

In Their Words: “A common characteristic of classic songs throughout history is how they tell a story or paint a picture for the listener. Our intention is to capture a wonderful story line that everyone can relate to — one that moves the listener emotionally through the lyrics and melody.” — Tim Raybon & Daniel Grindstaff, Merle Monroe

Photo credit: Sheri Clark

LISTEN: Andrew Sa, “Love Hurts” (feat. Sima Cunningham)

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Artist: Andrew Sa
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Song: “Love Hurts” (featuring Sima Cunningham)
Album: Cosmic Country Stars: Andrew Sa
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: Cosmic Country

In Their Words: “I love a sad song, and ‘Love Hurts’ is a sad-ass song. It’s the first time someone’s broken your heart, and you’re gonna let it all out. I liken the feelings of loss and emptiness in the song to that of floating alone in zero gravity. The numbness in the realization that love could also hurt. The majestic Sima Cunningham (of Ohmme) and I originally covered this true duet for the very first Cosmic Country Show, our now regular Chicago revue. Now after recording it for the first virtual Cosmic Country Show, it’s a real favorite among our fans.” — Andrew Sa

Photo credit: Alexa Viscius

LISTEN: Satsang, “Malachi”

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Artist: Satsang
Hometown: Red Lodge, Montana
Song: “Malachi”
Album: ‘All. Right. Now.’
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: SideOneDummy Records

In Their Words: “The day my son Malachi was born, they said his bilirubin count was bad and they suggested we keep him under this crazy blue light throughout the night. My wife and I couldn’t do it. While my wife slept, I held him on my chest overcome with joy and thinking about what he could be and what I could be to him. His mom woke up in the middle of the night and I handed him over, and as they slept I just watched the two of them. I pulled out my notebook and wrote down what would become this song.” — Drew McManus, Satsang

Photo credit: Greyson Christian Plate

WATCH: Turner Cody and the Soldiers of Love, “Lonely Days in Hollywood”

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Artist: Turner Cody and the Soldiers of Love
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Song: “Lonely Days in Hollywood”
Album: Friends in High Places
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: Capitane Records

In Their Words: “‘Lonely Days in Hollywood’ is one of the older songs on Friends in High Places. I wrote it years ago at my friend’s house in Paris. After a night of singing traditional Jewish songs, I awoke humming those haunting, cantorial melodies. Eventually, the phrase lonely days in Hollywood appeared out of nowhere. I’d never been to LA, but I conceived the song to be in that noir-ish Raymond Chandler/Day of the Locust vein — a wanderer is on the outskirts of an alluring yet hostile place with a seedy underbelly; a place where promises are broken and dreams of stardom go to die.

“The song is a kind of meditation on the transactional nature of our culture of celebrity; how our dreams belie reality and nothing is for free. The song was originally more up-tempo, but Nicolas Michaux’s arrangement is slower and groovier. He also made a slight change to the chord progression that moved the song away from its klezmer roots. The result is moody and dark and reminiscent of Serge Gainsbourg. This recording came out of a true collaboration. The song travelled a long way from its original form but I love how it turned out.” (Read more below the video.)

“The Capitane Records team dreamt up a truly ambitious plan for the shooting of the video, especially as it turned out to be in the midst of the pandemic. To get the right feel, we needed a location that invoked Los Angeles without necessarily being Los Angeles. Not an easy task. But as it turned out, we had a connection to a photographer on the island of Ibiza who, along with her friends, could provide us the help we needed. And so, after a month of back-and-forth with various embassies, we converged on the island in March.

“Valentine Riccardi (our point person) had already scouted a bunch of locations of out-of-the-way beaches, country roads, old churches, and a beautiful organic farm. As the island was free of tourists due the pandemic, its usually bustling downtown was desolate, providing us the perfect lonely, dystopian backdrop we needed. Valentine’s friend and muse Susana Tartalos played the role of savior and paramour to my down-and-out and wandering cowboy who drifts from hotel room to hitchhiking odyssey to rain-soaked jalopy only to end up at a fire ceremony in the hands of his new companion. Ibiza is a beautiful and enchanted place, whose beaches, seascapes, pastures, and mountain ranges were perfect for the video. Valentine’s friends and their children were like an extended family to us over the two weeks we were there. Like the song, the video was truly a group effort.” — Turner Cody

Photo credit: Charles Paulicevich

LISTEN: Tray Wellington, “Pond Mountain Breakaway”

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Artist: Tray Wellington
Hometown: Originally from Ashe County, North Carolina and now calls Johnson City, Tennessee home
Song: “Pond Mountain Breakaway”
Release Date: May 28, 2021
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “I actually wrote the main riff to this song while playing electric guitar — but then, while playing banjo the same day, I tried it out with more of a bluegrass feel, and thought, ‘Wow, it would be cool to write a fast, upbeat instrumental around it.’ When recording, I got to the session late because my car broke down on the way, and while I was trying to think of a name for the tune during the actual recording session, Wayne Benson, who plays mandolin on the track, asked me, ‘Where did you break down?’ I replied, ‘A place called Pond Mountain,’ and he said, ‘Call it “Pond Mountain Breakdown.” I thought that was a great idea, but as I was thinking about it later, I realized that I don’t get a full breakdown vibe from this tune — and when I thought that a little variation in bluegrass titles wouldn’t be a bad thing, I decided to make a slight change to ‘Pond Mountain Breakaway.’” — Tray Wellington

Photo credit: Rob Laughter