Tag: premiere

LISTEN: Ian Fisher, “Winterwind”

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Artist: Ian Fisher
Hometown: Ste. Genevieve, Missouri
Song: “Winterwind”
Album: American Standards
Release Date: February 19, 2021

In Their Words: “My hometown of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, is a four-and-a-half hour drive from Nashville. My pilgrimages there were always made more romantic by snaking alone in a car down the country roads along the Mississippi. A winter or two ago, I had the radio off listening to the wind rush around with my left hand hanging out of my open window like a wing and this song came to me. I fumbled between the seats and found a broken pen and a crumbled gas receipt. I pressed both firm to my steering wheel and wrote the bulk of this song at 55 mph nearing Paducah.” — Ian Fisher

Photo credit: Andreas Jakwerth

LISTEN: Beth Lee, “Birthday Song”

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Artist: Beth Lee
Hometown: Houston, Texas, now residing in Austin
Song: “Birthday Song”
Album: Waiting on You Tonight
Release Date: February 12, 2021

In Their Words: “I wrote this just before my birthday in 2018 for a songwriter game I am a part of, given the prompt ‘close my eyes.’ I sent it to Vicente Rodriguez, my friend and eventual producer, on his birthday a couple weeks later, and he loved it. It seemed apropos that we ended up booking studio time the week of his and guitarist James DePrato’s birthdays the following year. The song came together quickly in the studio with some minimalistic percussion, James’ guitar magic, some hand claps, and my favorite finishing touch, the glockenspiel. It was the first song we really finished and I remember thinking, yeah, this is going to be a good record.” — Beth Lee

Photo credit: Eryn Brooke

LISTEN: Anya Hinkle (Feat. Graham Sharp), “What’s It Gonna Take”

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Artist: Anya Hinkle featuring Graham Sharp
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Song: “What’s It Gonna Take”
Release Date: February 12, 2021
Label: Organic Records

In Their Words: “On May 26th, 2020, my neighbor Graham Sharp and I had planned to get together to do some songwriting. On that day, we had all woken up to the new reality, the first day without George Floyd in this world. ‘What should we write about?’ we asked each other, and we began to process the horror of his death through a song. We asked, what’s it gonna take? How can we speak to the brokenness of our country and our complicity in that? As we watched the nation convulse, we continued to write, trying to comprehend the pain we saw on display in the soul of our country and in ourselves.

“When we went into the studio to cut the single, we asked a master of the sacred steel, DaShawn Hickman, and gospel singer Wendy Hickman to join us in asking ‘what’s it gonna take?’ Bringing in their voices was an important part of processing the difficult summer, building trust and beauty through song. Only by listening to Black voices are we going to know what it is gonna take. We are still so divided and will remain ignorant until we can absorb what it’s like to be Black in America.” — Anya Hinkle

Photo credit: Rose Kaz

LISTEN: Lindsay Lou, “Bell Suite” & “Alright Sweet”

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Artist: Lindsay Lou
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Songs: “Bell Suite” & “Alright Sweet”
Album: The Suite Sweets
Release Date: February 12, 2021
Label: Alright Sweet Records

In Their Words: “I wrote all the elements of The Suite Sweets during a time when I was practicing with a lot of Immersion Composition Society (ICS) writing lodges. I was dedicating hours to the practice of writing as uninhibitedly as possible, and sometimes I would come out with partial songs that I would go back later to finish. I noticed that there were common themes among them, so I decided to try a smash-up of the two songs that mentioned bells into one song, and a smash-up of the two songs that mentioned being alright into another song, and I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. It seemed that the Suites had a sort of emergent property, which was greater than the sum of their parts. I made these particular tracks as demos, but loved the raw energy so much I knew I wanted to share them with the world when the time was right. There is the deep thread of my personal journey with mental health in ‘Alright Sweet’ and of the complexities of love in ‘Bell Suite,’ so I can’t imagine a better way to bring them to you than with the benefit show I’ve put together for Valentine’s Day weekend in support of Backline: a music industry-specific resource for mental health and well-being.” — Lindsay Lou

Photo credit: Scott Simontacchi

LISTEN: Joyann Parker, “What Did You Expect”

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Artist: Joyann Parker
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Song: “What Did You Expect”
Album: Out of the Dark
Release Date: Feb 12, 2021
Label: Hopeless Romantics Records

In Their Words: “This song is a cheeky response to an experience that my musical partner, Mark Lamoine, relayed to me once about his daughter, who was then around 9 years old. The story goes something like this: Mark’s daughter was invited to play soccer with some boys in the neighborhood. When she went out to the park to play, they then decided against playing with her, saying they ‘didn’t want to play with a GIRL.’ She ran into the house, crying and very upset, of course. Her mother, seeing her in distress, asked what happened and when she found out, got down on one knee in front of her daughter and said something to the effect of, ‘Get used to it, Honey, men lie.’ This was great inspiration for a song for me, so I took it, twisted it so the female narrator was the villain in a relationship and being dishonest with her partner about her intentions, saying, ‘Well, what did you expect?'” — Joyann Parker

Photo credit: Jeannine Marie Photography

WATCH: Tejon Street Corner Thieves, “Deal Rag”

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Artist: Tejon Street Corner Thieves
Hometown: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Song: “Deal Rag”
Album: Stolen Goods
Release Date: May 7, 2021
Label: Liars Club

In Their Words: “‘The Deal Rag’ had been a staple in our band since day one. It’s upbeat and fun as hell to play! It’s about when deals go wrong and you end up in a bad situation. Something we’re all too familiar with. We love the ragtime swing and the and the washboard solo rips. This is the first song we decided to put on Stolen Goods. It really sets the pace for the whole album.” — Connor O’Neal, Tejon Street Corner Thieves

Photo credit: Mountain Trout Photography

LISTEN: Mike Barnett, “Hybrid Hoss”

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Artist: Mike Barnett
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Hybrid Hoss”
Album: + 1
Release Date: March 19, 2021
Label: Compass Records

Editor’s Note: Fiddle player Mike Barnett’s collaborative album, + 1, was slated for a late summer 2020 release, but plans were derailed when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at his home in Nashville in July. He underwent two successful surgeries and an initial round of rehabilitation in Atlanta, and will soon begin intensive rehabilitation in Chicago. There, accompanied by his wife, fiddler Annalise Ohse, he will work to “reconnect his brain to his fingers.” In the midst of continuing his recovery, Barnett is very excited about getting the music on + 1 to the fans and community that have offered him so much support. Go to Mike Barnett’s GoFundMe page to contribute to his recovery fund.

In Their Words: “Here’s a good old Bill Monroe classic… oh wait, except for the ‘A’ part. I put one note per ping pong ball and played lottery bingo for that part… just kidding, though it might sound that way. I sometimes enjoy taking tunes outside the box, but still maintain some semblance of where it came from. This is a hybrid of ‘outside’ and ‘in’ based on Bill Monroe’s ‘Wheel Hoss.’ Grounding this in the tradition of banjo/fiddle seemed appropriate. Cory Walker’s instincts and diverse musical pallet make him one of very few people who could tackle this.” — Mike Barnett

Photo credit: Stacie Huckeba

LISTEN: Fort Frances, “Fits and Starts”

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Artist: Fort Frances
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Song: “Fits and Starts”
Release date: February 5, 2020

In Their Words: “The past year has been stuck on pause. Before the pandemic, time traveled on a superhighway at a million miles an hour, but since March, we’ve all been in a traffic jam. There have been plenty of huge challenges in that standstill, but the break from a consistent surge of momentum has actually been good in some respects. It’s been a chance to reflect and recognize that we’ve all been fooling ourselves as we speed through life seeking somewhere new. ‘Fits and Starts’ is a song about making the concept of time meaningless so that it feels okay to keep holding that pause button.” — David McMillin, Fort Frances

Photo credit: Esther Sullivan

WATCH: David Huckfelt, “Hidden Made Known”

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Artist: David Huckfelt
Hometown: Spencer, Iowa
Song: “Hidden Made Known”
Album: Room Enough, Time Enough
Release Date: February 26, 2021
Label: Gambler’s Dharma Records/Fluff & Gray Records

In Their Words: “‘Hidden Made Known’ is about having faith in the basic intelligence of the universe, and what to do next when you lose it. From Wounded Knee to Sault Ste. Marie, tenderness is on the run, ‘Here be monsters’ all over your Google maps, even your sure things fall through. Meanwhile, sparks of the dharma shoot out from little children, lakes and rivers all day long, saying ‘Be gentle.’ Don’t see many of these long-form poem-songs these days, we don’t seem to have the attention for them — but every line felt like it could be another song. Walk out of doors, slip through a crack in the live stream feed, find a glitch in the system and mine it until things feel wild again.” — David Huckfelt

Photo credit: Charlie Stout

LISTEN: Jon Stickley Trio, “Future Ghost”

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Artist: Jon Stickley Trio
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Song: “Future Ghost”
Release Date: February 5, 2021
Label: Organic Records

In Their Words: “‘Future Ghost’ was written during the beginning of the pandemic, shortly after finding out I was going to be a father. I was having so many conflicting feelings, and a little difficulty sorting them all out. I ended up thinking a lot about the cycle of life and how impermanent everything is. At one point I thought I saw a ghost in the hallway, and it looked like me. Somehow, the idea that I could someday be a ghost, haunting this house, gave me a great sense of comfort and motivation to make the most of my time. This song ended up really capturing that energy.” — Jon Stickley

Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither