Tag: Song Premiere

LISTEN: Cary Morin, “Valley of the Chiefs”

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Artist: Cary Morin
Hometown: Lives in Fort Collins, Colorado; from Great Falls, Montana
Song: “Valley of the Chiefs”
Album: Dockside Saints
Release Date: August 7, 2020

In Their Words: “A true story told by my great grandmother at my Crow naming ceremony when I was about four years old. It tells of when she was a teenager and was kidnapped by a neighboring tribe. When women were kidnapped back then, they were destined to a life of servitude. She and her friends escape the warriors and are able to steal their horses and ride back home. The moral of the story from my great-grandmother to me was that there is nothing in life that you cannot overcome. I believe she was giving me this story to teach me perseverance in the face of any obstacles in my life. The story is familiar to me for my whole life.

“I wrote it as a memory of my life and my culture. I’ve written songs about the Crow side of my family for years. Not many of them were ever published until recently in my career. Earlier in my life, I probably thought that sharing these stories and family history was too personal. It would be interesting to ask other Crow people what their specific naming ceremony stories are. There are many… Now, I feel it is important to share this history and continue the oral history of my people. I’ve always wanted to hear this song with a different presentation. I had previously recorded it as a solo tune. I wanted a presentation with sweeping melodic lines.” — Cary Morin

Photo credit: Reggie Ruth Barrett

LISTEN: The Texas Gentlemen, “Skyway Streetcar”

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Artist: The Texas Gentlemen
Hometown: Dallas, Texas
Song: “Skyway Streetcar”
Album: Floor It!!!
Release Date: July 17, 2020
Label: New West Records

In Their Words: “‘Skyway Streetcar’ is the first song Dan Creamer and I ever wrote together. It is still one of my favorites to play. It’s really the best example of our writing and lyrical trade-off style and vibe. Lyrically, we kinda looked at it as a way to live life to the fullest and get around doin’ so. Basically, a spacecraft of sorts you can use to get the best out of life.

“We had all just moved into a big house south of Dallas on Mona Lane. Later referred to often as ‘Mona.’ We were in the middle of cultivating Beatles songs and various other favorite covers to fill in for Daniel’s brother, who had to bail on a weekly residency at the Sundown at Granada. In the midst of this, we unknowingly started a band that was bound to be more than just a cover band. The musical chemistry that was building between Dan and I flowed into our own song ideas. With ‘Skyway Streetcar,’ I had the music all recorded in demo form, but one night we were laughing about what a casanova one of our pals and bandmates was at the time. That’s what inspired the line, ‘I’ve got a friend, goes from town to town, knocking ‘em up setting ‘em down, he used to really get around.’ The lyrics just grew from there.

“We had a studio in Mona and that is where the song was originally recorded just directly after writing it. For the next several years we continued to play it live. We had used that song as a jumping-off point to feel out any given studio. So this song technically was recorded about five times as we recorded in different studios before we ever took it to Echo Lab and did the final version with Matt Pence.” — Nik Lee of The Texas Gentlemen

Photo credit: Barbara FG

LISTEN: Joshua Hyslop, “Let It Rain”

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Artist: Joshua Hyslop
Hometown: Vancouver, British Columbia
Song: “Let It Rain”
Album: Ash & Stone
Release Date: September 11, 2020
Label: Nettwerk

In Their Words: “We recorded ‘Let it Rain’ in Vancouver, BC, at Afterlife Studios. I was lucky enough to work with some truly amazing musicians including John Raham, Darren Parris, Chris Gestrin, Paul Rigby, and Matt Kelly. We had so much fun. It was a great reminder of how powerfully music can communicate, how it can heal, and how much that means to me. ‘Let it Rain’ is a song about mental health. I often deal with depression and one of the ways it manifests in my life is an overwhelming feeling of numbness. I’m trying to be more positive in those moments, recognizing that I can’t avoid the storms but also trying hard to stay present and remain hopeful through them.” — Joshua Hyslop

Photo credit: Devon Scott Wong

LISTEN: Mike Barnett, “Righteous Bell” (Featuring Sarah Jarosz)

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Artist: Mike Barnett
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Righteous Bell” (featuring Sarah Jarosz)
Album: + 1
Release Date: September 11, 2020
Label: Compass Records

In Their Words: “I wrote this just before the 2016 presidential election. Looking back, there is much work to be done before any ‘righteous bell’ is rung. The juxtaposition of the propelling, changing instrumental and the grounding, unchanging vocal melody creates a sort of galvanizing tension that hopefully inspires the listener to take action — voting, conversing, learning, protesting, etc. Just like in an old-time jam, the vocal melody and lyric fuels the fiddles and banjos, and everyone feeds off each other’s energy. Sarah Jarosz’s powerful singing and driving clawhammer banjo brought this song to life.” — Mike Barnett

Photo credit: Stacie Huckeba

LISTEN: India Ramey, “Montgomery Behind Me”

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Artist: India Ramey
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Montgomery Behind Me”
Album: Shallow Graves
Release Date: September 4, 2020

In Their Words: “‘Montgomery Behind Me’ is somewhat autobiographical. I got married young, the first time. My first husband (who is a nice man) was from a ‘good family’ in Montgomery. I was not, so I was a square peg in a round hole. I just never fit, not with him, not with anyone there. I felt guilty for not being happy and not making everyone else happy. Eventually I had to accept that my time there was an exercise in futility. I also had to muster the courage to accept who I am and be not just OK with it, but be happy about it. When I would think about leaving, I had this vision of me heading down that long, flat highway with the small Montgomery skyline behind me and never looking back. Above and beyond the personal stuff, this song is a refusal to people-please and an acceptance and liberation of one’s true self.” — India Ramey

India Ramey · Montgomery Behind Me

Photo credit: Stacie Huckeba

LISTEN: Kris Delmhorst, “The Horses”

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Artist: Kris Delmhorst
Hometown: Buckland, Massachusetts
Song: “The Horses”
Album: Long Day in the Milky Way
Release Date: August 14, 2020
Label: CEN/The Orchard

In Their Words: “For me, Rickie Lee Jones represents artistic fearlessness and uncompromising freedom. Her work always offers the inspiration to take risks and reach farther. She’s a deep musician and a serious student of song — I love her covers records so much — but she’s also a free-range seeker, unhindered by the boundaries of genre. There’s such curiosity, joy, humor, and deep compassion running through all of her music.

“I don’t generally include covers on my albums, but while we were in the studio for this one we caught a version of ‘The Horses,’ and it ended up feeling like it belonged. I love how it resonates with the record’s themes, persistence and struggle and hope. And I love the idea of RLJ’s presence gracing the proceedings like an honored guest, a patron saint.” — Kris Delmhorst

Photo credit: Brittany Powers

LISTEN: William Matheny, “Mind for Leaving”

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Artist: William Matheny
Hometown: Morgantown, West Virginia
Song: “Mind for Leaving”
Album: Split 7″ single with Frontier Folk Nebraska
Release Date: July 11, 2020
Label: Soul Step

In Their Words: “‘Mind for Leaving’ was written and recorded in January, which feels like approximately 800 years ago at this point. In between tour dates, we holed up in a cabin outside of Point Pleasant, West Virginia (home of the Mothman, Shawnee leader Hokoleskwa and Mister Bee Potato Chips). No one was socially distancing yet, but given the set and setting, it felt like we got an early jump on it. Like most Januarys, I remember the days being brief, gray and severe. I finished the song while the mics were getting placed and we arranged and tracked it that same afternoon. It was just the way my band and I like to work: quickly, without distractions and, hopefully, no cell phone service.” — William Matheny

Photo credit: Max Nolte

LISTEN: Eilen Jewell, “Green River”

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Artist: Eilen Jewell
Hometown: Boise, Idaho
Song: “Green River”
Album: “Green River”/ “Summertime” 7-inch single
Release Date: July 8, 2020
Label: Signature Sounds

In Their Words: “Every summer for the past twelve years or so, as the Green River Festival in Greenfield, Massachusetts, rolls around, I’ve had Creedence’s song ‘Green River’ stuck in my head. For about as many years I’d wanted to surprise the audience with a rendition of that perfectly summery tune as my homage to the beloved festival, which is presented by Signature Sounds, the label I’ve been happily working with since the beginning of my career. I have so many great memories of that festival over the years: meeting Lucinda Williams for the first time, getting my guitar autographed by Emmylou Harris, being moved to tears by Mavis Staples singing about the Freedom Highway, loving the music in the rain, or in the sun, or the crazy wind, every year having a distinctly amazing experience.

“Last summer the planets aligned just so and my band and I were able to present our version of ‘Green River’ to the Green River Festival on the main stage, and my daughter, part of the next generation of festival goers, was there to witness it. I’m not sure which Green River John Fogerty had in mind when he wrote the tune. I know he did so long before the Green River Festival began, but just as the song is synonymous to me with all things summer, so is that festival. When we recorded the song in August of last year, we would never have believed that the future of that festival, and nearly all festivals, and our own future as touring musicians, would be so imperiled. It’s my hope that the spirit of those free-flowing summer festival days and nights can live on brightly in our hearts and minds, that we can keep that spirit alive until rosier days, and pass the torch to the next generation to keep it lit.” — Eilen Jewell

Photo credit: Joanna Chattman

LISTEN: The Sons of the Soul Revivers, “It Isn’t Safe”

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Artist: The Sons of the Soul Revivers
Hometown: Vallejo, California
Song: “It Isn’t Safe”
Album: Songs We’ll Always Sing: A Tribute to the Pilgrim Jubilees
Release Date: July 12, 2020
Label: Little Village Foundation

In Their Words: “Ever since I heard the album the Pilgrim Jubilees put out in 1973, the title is Don’t Let Him Down, I think I’ve gravitated especially to this song, ‘It Isn’t Safe.’ It was the last song on the ‘B’ side. And Cleve Graham, the leader of the Jubilees, shared with us the premise of that song. They were in Chicago, and Cleve said his brother Clay, who’s no longer with us, may he rest in peace, walked in and had a disgusted look on his face. Walking back from church, he’d seen two men attacking a lady. And Clay said, ‘You know what? It isn’t safe anywhere anymore.’ And he wrote the song.

“The message in it, from 1973 and here we are in 2020, and the message is still on point. The distrust of law enforcement, and law enforcement distrusts the public… we have yet to come to a common ground on how we can get along. I’m hoping and praying that this song will resonate with people in general. The lyric goes, ‘We should treat sin just like dirt, and with the broom of faith we should sweep it aside.’ I love that. It’s the only way we’re going to survive. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you, I declare that this is all you have to do. It isn’t safe….'” — James Morgan, The Sons of the Soul Revivers

Photo courtesy of the Sons of the Soul Revivers

LISTEN: Bowregard, “High on a Mountain”

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Artist: Bowregard
Hometown: Boulder, Colorado
Song: “High on a Mountain”
Album: Arrows
Release Date: July 1, 2020

In Their Words: “Bowregard are all big fans of Colorado’s seminal bluegrass band Hot Rize, and love their rendition of Ola Belle Reed’s classic ‘High on a Mountain.’ When Max Kabat (guitar) got inspired to reharmonize a classic bluegrass song, this one seemed like a natural. Max and James Armington (banjo) created a new chord structure that emphasized the lonesomeness and desperation contained in the words of the original song, and put a soaring minor harmony in the chorus that played to the band’s fondness for tight three-part vocals. When it came time to record the track in the studio, things came full circle as producer Nick Forster — bassist and vocalist in Hot Rize — helped the band realize an inspired performance of the arrangement. The result is a haunting new perspective on a beloved standard of the bluegrass repertoire.” — Justin Konrad, Bowregard (resophonic guitar)

Photo credit: Chantelle Hegreness