Tag: premiere

LISTEN: Balsam Range, “Grit and Grace”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Balsam Range
Hometown: Haywood County, North Carolina
Song: “Grit and Grace”
Release Date: September 4, 2020
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “’Grit and Grace’ is the kind of song that every single person who walks this earth can or will likely relate to at some point during their journey. But with determination, courage, faith, and finding the inner grit to overcome struggles, we live to tell another story. One that has a happy ending for us. My desire is that this song provides encouragement and strength to anyone who may be suffering. That they may find peace in knowing they are not alone.

“The inspiration for ‘Grit and Grace’ came from a man who served his country, walked the Bataan Death March, and was a prisoner of war for 3½ years, Walter Middleton. When my mom asked him how he got through it, his answer was simply, ‘I provided the grit and God provided the grace.’ He later in life wrote a book about his time spent as a prisoner of war and he signed the book to my mother with, ‘For folks like you I would gladly do it again.’ It is hard to comprehend the willingness to suffer that greatly for others but many before us have. Life is about learning, teaching, sharing, and helping those along our journey that are experiencing what we may have already experienced and by grace overcame.” — Buddy Melton, Balsam Range (vocalist and fiddler)

Photo credit: David Simchok

WATCH: Lizzy Long, “Final Curtain”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Lizzy Long
Hometown: Lincolnton, Georgia
Song: “Final Curtain”
Album: Dreaming Again
Release Date: May 1, 2020
Label: Vine Records

In Their Words: “‘Final Curtain’ is one of my favorite songs on my new Dreaming Again project. I made a special trip to Santa Barbara, California, with my producer, Wayne Haun, so we could write a few tunes with the great Joel Lindsey. Writing with Joel and Wayne is pure magic for me. This song is a metaphor for the ending of a relationship and ironically I like to close my concerts with it.” — Lizzy Long

Photo credit: Jeremy Ryan

LISTEN: Great Peacock, “Heavy Load”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Great Peacock
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Heavy Load”
Album: Forever Better Worse
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Soundly Music

In Their Words: “I don’t totally know what this song means or is about. I just know that it makes me feel a lot of different emotions. We love so many things throughout the course of our life. Love is experienced and given and received in so many different ways for all manner of experiences, memories, places, things, and people. I think the real message of this song is that love isn’t always an easy thing, but you can’t give up on it. You have to give and receive it. I’m telling myself that in this song. I’m not singing to anyone else. I’m singing to me.” — Andrew Nelson, Great Peacock

Photo credit: Harrison Hudson

LISTEN: Hayes Carll, “Beaumont” (Acoustic)

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Hayes Carll
Hometown: Woodlands, Texas; currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Beaumont” (Acoustic)
Album: Alone Together Sessions
Release Date: September 4, 2020
Label: Dualtone

In Their Words: “I started out singing on the southeast coast of Texas. Beaumont was just an hour up the road from where I was living. I had a few gigs there. A few friends too. The town just kept finding its way into my work. Its physical proximity to Houston, combined with the cultural differences, made it an interesting origin point for the narrator in this song. He’s in the city but the perspective comes from a simpler place. I’m thinking about all the folks down there right now dealing with yet another hurricane.” — Hayes Carll

Photo credit: David McClister

WATCH: Trae Sheehan, “Paris”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Trae Sheehan
Hometown: Martinsburg, West Virginia
Song: “Paris”
Album: Postcards from the Country
Release Date: September 18, 2020
Label: Half Moon Records

In Their Words: “Somewhere in a hazy, black & white, overcast New York City full of briefcases and energy is where I found ‘Paris.’ It was a song I wanted to write for a while but I didn’t know how to approach it. The first line was with me for a few days before I sat down to write, and by the time I was at the kitchen table with my notebook and guitar, all I could see in my head was SoHo in New York City in this strange 1950s kind of way. I mixed that imagery with how out of place someone can feel in the dating world and that’s where the song lives. It’s probably my favorite song on the record.” — Trae Sheehan

Photo credit: Misty Sheehan

WATCH: The Ghost of Paul Revere, “Diving Bell”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Ghost of Paul Revere
Hometown: Portland, Maine
Song: “Diving Bell”
Album: Good at Losing Everything
Release Date: August 28, 2020
Label: GOPR Records

In Their Words: “‘Diving Bell’ was written to process a painful decision made with best intent. At the time I was struggling with partnership, and more honestly, the general concept of connectivity. It was around this period that I heard Nate DiMeo’s historical narrative on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge called “Below, From Above.” His piece, inspired by David McCullough’s The Great Bridge, put a humanistic element on the lengths we can go to, physically and metaphorically, to bridge gaps. I became fixated on the idea that the most grueling and necessary work to complete that connection, was done in a vacuum, at the bottom of the East River.” — Max Davis, The Ghost of Paul Revere

Photo credit: Lauryn Hottinger

LISTEN: John Fullbright, “Crossing Over”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: John Fullbright
Hometown: Born in Bearden, Oklahoma; lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Song: “Crossing Over” (written by Steve Ripley)
Album: Back to Paradise: A Tulsa Tribute to Okie Music
Release Date: August 28, 2020
Label: Horton Records

In Their Words: “I played various keyboards and acoustic guitar, percussion, and sang a bunch of stuff — I was all over the map on the record. I picked out ‘If the Shoe Fits’ by Leon Russell because I’m pretty sure that song was recorded at Paradise Studio and it’s about that place. I did an audible at the last minute and recorded a Hoyt Axton song called ‘Jealous Man.’ We wound up doing it in one take, which always feels nice. I thought the selection was great — we went from the obscure to stuff that everybody knows.

“I also recorded a song called ‘Crossing Over’ by Steve Ripley. Yeah, it’s my buddy, Steve. It’s literally a song about him going on to the next thing, and right after, he went on to the next thing. There was a tape glitch sound when we were recording it that was just subtle enough that everyone just turned and looked at each other. It was so subtle that it wouldn’t mess up everything else. It was just a little ‘Hey guys,’ ‘Hey kids.’ That was Steve.

“I’d heard about Leon’s Grand Lake Studio for a long time. It was a lot cooler and vibier than I had expected. I didn’t know that so many of the records that I really like were recorded there. So, walking around the place, and just kinda feeling it out, it was almost as good as being there back in the day. This is a snapshot in time of the Tulsa music scene that is very eclectic and very talented. And it’s a city that obviously doesn’t forget its roots, its past, and celebrates it and builds on it.” — John Fullbright

Photo credit: Phil Clarkin

WATCH: James Lee Baker, “100 Summers”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: James Lee Baker
Hometown: Amarillo, Texas. Currently living in Denver, Colorado.
Song: “100 Summers”
Album: 100 Summers
Release Date: September 4, 2020

In Their Words: “The last few years of my life I have been on a personal journey to discover my place in existence. In this infinitely expanding and massive, hostile universe, my perspective has changed from one of fear to one of acceptance. In all of the chaos surrounding us, we are capable through our own free will of creating our own paradise and sharing it with others. It is in this life that we should strive to find happiness, not defer such joy of existence until after our inevitable deaths.

“All the things I own are temporary — my house, the money in my bank account, my car, my guitars. All of it will cease to matter at some point and … was it ever mine to begin with anyways? I am just trading one thing for another in the end. All I really have right now is the present moment and in a flash that could be taken from me, so why should I spend that time daydreaming about being somewhere else or wanting something I don’t have?

“I could ask for so many things but I’ve been there and I know that I will not be fulfilled. ‘If I could have one wish, it would be to live a life full of meaning and wonder for 100 Summers.’ It would be a life spent investing into the most important thing in existence — being alive and enjoying the tender moments of it with those that I love.” — James Lee Baker

Photo credit: Delaney Gibson

LISTEN: Dianne Davidson, “Sounds of the City”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Dianne Davidson
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Sounds Of The City”
Album: Perigon: Full Circle
Release Date: August 28, 2020
Label: Perigon Music

In Their Words: “I was 19 or 20. I was already being a bit beaten up by the business. I spent two weeks on the road with The Moody Blues as opening act while I was touring my third album, Mountain Mama. Sometimes on those quick one-nighter tours, you can lose your bearings and realize you don’t quite know where you are. I was in a high-rise hotel, down below was traffic and noise and people milling about. I felt like a lost soul and wrote the song to center myself again. As fate would have it, I never recorded it until now. I was fortunate enough to have it recorded by Tracy Nelson on her Homemade Songs album in 1978. I was so grateful for her version of it. I knew I needed to do it on this record. It just belonged. The feeling just poured out and I was blessed with the beauty of my friends who played and sang on it. The B3 player, Austin Wireman, wasn’t even born when I wrote it. Full Circle.” — Dianne Davidson

Photo provided by the artist.