Tag: Song Premiere

LISTEN: Jay Nash, “Shine”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Jay Nash
Hometown: Vermont, USA
Song: “Shine”
Album: Night Songs EP
Release Date: August 20, 2021
Label: Bluff Island Music / Copperline Music

In Their Words: “The first two songs (‘Mack’s Lullaby’ and ‘Shine’) from this little project came into the world just moments after my first child, my daughter Mackenzie, arrived. After the cacophony of activity of doctors, midwives and nurses had resolved and my wife Rebecca had settled into a restorative, post-natal slumber, my newborn daughter and I sat quietly together in the dark. I held her, then the size of a tightly-swaddled football, in my arms and she lay there with eyes wide open yet serenely quiet, staring up at me. I told her then, ‘You and I are going to have some fun together.’ I swear, she seemed to truly hear me and understand me in that moment. She was so calm in that moment and her facial expression suggested profound wisdom.

“After some time, I’m not sure how much exactly, Mackenzie drifted off to sleep. I was still wide awake so I picked up the nylon string guitar that I had brought along to the hospital. In those first few blissful silent moments of being a father, the melodies, chords and themes of ‘Mack’s Lullaby’ and ‘Shine’ came to be. I recorded both raw song ideas into my iPhone before finally drifting off and joining my wife and new daughter in a deep slumber. It took me nearly ten years to return to those ideas, partly because, as all parents know, what followed those calm and quiet moments of parenthood was an all-out sprint…a crash course into the massive sea change of lifestyle that comes with becoming a parent.” – Jay Nash

Photo Credit: Laura Crosta

LISTEN: Elijah Ocean, “Honky Tonk Hole”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Elijah Ocean
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Honky Tonk Hole”
Album: Born Blue
Release Date: July 23, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Honky Tonk Hole’ is about a guy who has seen better days and whose big dreams have all gone up in smoke. Now he spends all his time drinking and playing country music in bars. Not entirely sure why he’s complaining about it, though. Seems kinda fun and not a bad life. It’s a high-energy shuffle about falling into a rut but also kind of loving it.” — Elijah Ocean

Photo credit: Wolfe & Von

WATCH: Morningsiders, “This Could Be Good”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Morningsiders
Hometown: New York City
Song: “This Could Be Good”
Album: Easy Does It
Release Date: July 23, 2021
Label: Nettwerk

In Their Words: “We started writing this project after lockdowns hit, and it was starting to sink in that this was a long-term situation. I wanted to write something about aimless nights out with friends (since there were none coming up anytime soon). We knew we wanted it to feel dance-y and delicate, but also hazy as if you’re kind of floating. The song is meant to capture this rare feeling when you just can’t put a foot wrong with the person you’re with. You’re both laughing at the same things, both on the same wavelength, both equally curious about the other. When that happens the rest of the world recedes away a little, almost like background noise.

“Instrumentally, the challenge was to build an arc out of the same musical pattern that repeats throughout. The entrances and exits of the strings and drums come and go around the steady heartbeat of the tune. We ended up giving the last couple choruses over completely to the instruments, and that’s probably my favorite part of the song. I don’t have to repeat ‘this could be good’ because that feeling is just hanging in the air at that point. For the video we knew that we wanted to bring the tune to life by working with Ilya Vidrin and Jessi Stegall, who are two incredible dancers based in Boston. They totally captured a certain lightheartedness, but also the vulnerability and obsession that come along with falling deeper and deeper into a relationship. Watching them move makes the song feel less like an internal monologue and more like a feeling that is shared and nurtured between two people.” — Magnus Ferguson, Morningsiders

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez

LISTEN: Lonesome River Band, “Every Minute Means a Mile”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Lonesome River Band
Hometown: Floyd, Virginia
Song: “Every Minute Means a Mile”
Album: Singing Up There: A Tribute to the Easter Brothers
Release Date: July 23, 2021
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “‘Every Minute Means a Mile’ is an Easter Brothers classic that talks about the common man’s journey to the cross and Jesus Christ. If we follow The Cross on this journey, the Greatest Reward is on the other side. We cannot look back at what we have done, but we must keep our eyes on the Cross and with patience, we will gain our Heavenly Reward. There is nothing complicated in the way The Easter Brothers wrote the lyrics. Simplicity at its finest!” — Sammy Shelor, Lonesome River Band

Photo credit: Anthony Ladd

LISTEN: Cole Scheifele, “All The While”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Cole Scheifele
Hometown: Boulder, Colorado
Song: “All the While”
Album: The Hideaways
Single Release Date: July 22, 2021

In Their Words: “This song is about living in the present and chasing the things that invigorate you in life while you can. This record revolves around themes of feeling stuck by life and this song is about not letting life get in the way and just going and doing what your heart tells you to and watching it all fall into place as you go. This is one of the only songs I’ve ever written that really breaks open and gets big, and a little bit rock and roll and we made it that way on purpose. I wanted it to feel like that feeling of really cracking your heart open and letting go of all the things in life that weigh you down and just going for it.

“I had the first verse done for years and could never finish the song, but then one day I sat down during quarantine, and the last 2/3 of the song just sort of poured out of me. It’s interesting, it happened while I was furloughed and sitting in this seemingly stagnant state of being, where the world was entirely at a halt, this song about getting out and going for it just sort came out of me. It’s funny how it works out that way. I hope we captured some of that feeling.” — Cole Scheifele

Photo credit: Kate Petrik

LISTEN: Dallas Burrow, “My Father’s Son”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Dallas Burrow
Hometown: New Braunfels, Texas
Song: “My Father’s Son”
Album: Dallas Burrow
Release Date: July 23, 2021

In Their Words: “A real storyteller’s song, this is an autobiographical history of four generations of men in a family line and the influence that fathers have on their sons, sparing no detail. My grandfather was born on the 4th of July and he was a Master-Sergeant in the Army Air Corps, and survived D-Day. They called him Junebug. He’s always been a mythical character in my mind, as I never got to meet him. My dad never saw much of him either, as my grandfather was usually either off at war, or otherwise absent. Then my father was a hippie and a hitchhiker, a rebel and an outlaw, a poet and a songwriter, and later in life, a teacher, a triathlete, and more than anything else, unlike his father, always there for me. So I absorbed all those things; the legacy of having a war hero for a grandfather who was there when our country needed him, but who was absent from his own children’s lives because of it, and the stories my dad told me of his own travels and exploits when America was young and wild and free, in the ’60s and ’70s.

“Then of course there was my own journey, taking up the mantle of being a storytelling musician, the struggles, the trials, the beauty, the wonder, all of that, which would eventually lead me to meeting a woman, and having a son, which ultimately, radically changed my life from one of a wandering troubadour with an insatiable taste for the wild side of life, to a relatively responsible, grounded adult, still a troubadour, and still with a wanderlust, but with an entirely different set of priorities and lifestyle choices. This tune tackles the job of weaving all of those nuances of my family line into a neat little folk song that captures the idea that no matter who our fathers were, we are who we are in part because of those that came before us.” — Dallas Burrow

Photo credit: Ryan Vestil

LISTEN: Adeline Stringband, “Hickory”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Adeline Stringband (L to R: Chris Coole, Mark Kilianski, John Showman, Adrian Gross, Sam Allison)
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario
Song: “Hickory”
Album: Adeline
Release Date: July 23, 2021

In Their Words: “This session was definitely one of the loosest, most off-the-cuff, and most creative I’ve been a part of, and I’d hazard to say the same is true for the other guys. Smack dab in the middle of the pandemic — when none of us had really seen anyone besides immediate family for about a year — we holed up in a cabin in the woods and recorded old time tunes for three days and three nights. Seeing as it was -20º and there was a blizzard outside the whole time, there was nothing to do but pick tunes and roll the tape, and that’s exactly what we did. We learned “Hickory” from the great fiddler Earl White, and you can really hear the group interplay on this track.” — Adrian Gross

Photo credit: Chris Coole

LISTEN: Ava Earl, “New Light”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Ava Earl
Hometown: Girdwood, Alaska
Song: “New Light”
Album: The Roses
Release Date: July 23, 2021

In Their Words: “‘New Light’ was one of the first love songs I wrote. It’s about the early time in a relationship where you keep finding little things that change the way you see a person (hopefully good things)! This song is also a little existential — it deals with the wonder and mystery of the universe as well as that of love. When you meet someone that you feel so deeply connected to, it feels like there must be a reason you were brought together, and yet rationally, I don’t believe that there is. I’m not sure I’ll ever know exactly if there’s a greater meaning to life, but for me this song is about being okay with that, and always finding a new way to look at beautiful things.” — Ava Earl

Photo credit: Shannon Earl

LISTEN: Kashena Sampson, “Hello Darkness”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Kashena Sampson
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Song: “Hello Darkness”
Album: Time Machine
Release Date: September 10, 2021
Label: New Moon Records

In Their Words: “This is a cover song by the Dutch rock band, Shocking Blue. I asked my best friend if she could choose one song for me to cover which one would she choose, it was this. I love Shocking Blue and I think it’s a great song and I connect to the lyrics, especially with what I was going through at that time in my life. To me, this song carries the message of yearning for someone who you cannot be with. It goes along with what a lot of the songs on this record are about. My struggles with codependency, fantasizing in relationships and thinking someone outside of me was the answer to my problems. It is a very heavy feeling when you think that someone else can fix you and you find out that they are not the answer. A good portion of the songs on this record are about a relationship I had with someone I cared for very much, who had gotten into some trouble and was incarcerated. I went into rescue mode and believed I had to save them in order to be ok.” — Kashena Sampson

Photo credit: Laura Partain

LISTEN: Chris J Norwood, “Good Guy With a Gun”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Chris J Norwood
Hometown: Dallas, Texas
Song: “Good Guy With a Gun”
Album: I Am Not Cool
Release Date: August 20, 2021
Label: State Fair Records

In Their Words: “I struggled with whether or not to include this song on the album. I’d already written several songs about my father’s suicide that appeared on my last album, so I worried that I was rehashing something lyrically that I’d already covered. But I realized that losing a parent at a young age is always going to be a part of me. It’s part of my story. It’s tangled all in my roots. And it’s good for me on a personal/spiritual/emotional level to keep talking about it, writing songs about it, and singing about it. Truth be told, we as a country need to talk more openly about suicide. Especially as it relates to the gun debate and gun culture. This song also happens to be one of my kids’ favorite songs off the new album. They love the music, and they’re too young to understand all the nuance in the lyrics. The only part they really like singing is, ‘Daddy was a good guy, and always did the best he could. He’d do anything to protect the ones he loved.’ And honestly, that’s how I chose to remember my father.” — Chris J Norwood

Photo credit: Alyssa Leigh Cates