Tag: Song Premiere

LISTEN: Terri Hendrix, “I Hear Your Song”

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Artist: Terri Hendrix
Hometown: San Marcos, Texas
Song: “I Hear Your Song”
Album: Talk to a Human
Release Date: September 6, 2019

In Their Words: “I first got this idea for ‘I Hear Your Song’ after seeing the animated film Happy Feet. The movie is about the importance of discovering one’s own ‘heart song,’ to attract true love and happiness. But when when Lloyd Maines lost his mother, it took a darker tone. I wrote the chorus for him. I wanted her back. She was a light on this planet and I missed her, too. I finished the verse ‘we see things we can’t unsee’ after I lost my sister. I wanted my last image of her to be of her smiling. If you’ve lost someone, you know what I mean.

“The song is sweet on record, but all in all the subject matter was pretty heartbreaking at that time. Still is. Because of epilepsy, I need someone to drive me from time to time. That’s the verse where someone will ‘take the wheel.’ In the end, I wanted someone to hear my song. And I wanted to listen to theirs. To connect through the shared experience of profound loss. And heal.” — Terri Hendrix

Photo Credit: Kim Maguire

LISTEN: Bill Scorzari, “Treat Me Kind”

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Artist: Bill Scorzari
Hometown: Huntington, New York
Song: “Treat Me Kind”
Album: Now I’m Free
Release Date: September 20, 2019

In Their Words: “Knowing I had a good number of sad/slow songs for this record, I set out to write some uptempo songs to balance things out, and ‘Treat Me Kind’ is the first one that came to me. I could feel some of the old 1970s ‘country rock’ (Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels Band…) influences from my youth welling up and flowing out and that made writing this song a whole lot of fun. Brent Burke played Dobro on my last record, Through These Waves (2017), and I asked him to come back and play some more for the 2019 album, Now I’m Free. That’s him warming up before the song starts. When the band kicks in, it’s me on acoustic guitar and vocals, Will Kimbrough on slide and electric guitar, Juan Solórzano on electric guitar, Michael Rinne on electric bass, and producer Neilson Hubbard on drums.” — Bill Scorzari

Photo credit: Lauren Johoda

LISTEN: Dallas Burrow, “Leaving Colorado”

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Artist: Dallas Burrow
Hometown: New Braunfels, Texas
Song: “Leaving Colorado”
Album: Southern Wind
Release Date: September 20, 2019
Label: Subliminal Hyminal

In Their Words: “I had been on a dry spell for a while, and then out of the blue, I wrote ‘Southern Wind’ (the album’s title track) and ‘Leaving Colorado’ in two days, back to back. While the first was more of a wholesome account of building a family, ‘Leaving Colorado’ on the other hand scratched an itch for adventure and mischief, through the eyes of the mythical wandering frontiersman, in a story that could have just as easily have taken place in the 1800s or today. It’s the timeless tale of love, love lost, adultery, betrayal, murder, and mayhem — soaked in whiskey and smelling of sixgun smoke that is always alive and well in the imagination of the Wild West.” — Dallas Burrow

Photo credit: Lyza Renee

LISTEN: The Grascals, “Drivin’ My Life Away”

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Artist: The Grascals
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Drivin’ My Life Away”
Album: Straighten the Curves
Release Date: August 30, 2019
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “This is one of my favorite country songs from the 1980s. I always wanted to cut it in a bluegrass band because it lends itself well to that style. It’s upbeat, powerful, and tons of fun. ‘Drivin’ My Life Away’ has that funk and groove about it. It’s one of those songs that as soon as you start singing it, people know exactly what it is. It’s infectious.” — Singer and guitarist Chris Davis

Photo credit: Kim Lancaster Brantley

LISTEN: Hot Club of Cowtown, “My Candy”

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Artist: Hot Club of Cowtown
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “My Candy”
Album: Wild Kingdom
Release Date: September 27, 2019
Label: Gold Strike

In Their Words: “‘My Candy’ was inspired by a Coleman Hawkins chord progression that we adapted. I wrote a melody to it that was originally meant for a slower, more sentimental song idea. We cut a rough version and I realized we were not going to be thrilled to play it live, because it was too slow and I wanted something more upbeat. So we picked up the tempo and I wrote a twin part on it. We do it on guitar and violin live, but for the album I twinned it myself on fiddle.

“As for the words, I just assumed this song already existed — an expression of love and appreciation through a candy vocabulary. But in researching different vintage candies, I found that there in fact was no such song that I could find, which was a thrilling discovery. So the idea was to combine these vintage candies, bring them to life as distinct characters, and blend them into this Tin Pan Alley-style melody and changes.

“After I wrote the words I later found out later that ‘jelly bean’ is an actual term that, according to Wikipedia, in the United States “during the 1910s and early 1920s, a “Jellybean” or “Jelly-Bean” was a young man who dressed stylishly but had little else to recommend him, similar to the older terms dandy and fop. F. Scott Fitzgerald published a story about such a character, “The Jelly-Bean,” during 1920.’ Perfect!” — Elana James (singer/songwriter/fiddle player)

Photo credit: Ryan Saul

LISTEN: Justin Wade Tam, “Colors of My Mind”

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Artist: Justin Wade Tam
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Colors of My Mind”
Album: A Place to Land (EP)
Release Date: October 25, 2019
Label: Tone Tree

In Their Words: “‘Colors of My Mind’ is in part about how a consistent space can foster creativity and peace. For me, that place is my living room, where I’ve been writing songs for nearly 13 years. It’s a quiet, contemplative room with natural light that shifts nicely throughout the seasons. I’ve written the better part of five albums within those four walls, so I wanted to capture it musically. My friend Jordan Lehning produced this song beautifully and insisted that we record it live. You can hear the reflections of the live studio in the recording, which to me sounds very reminiscent of my living room and the peace of simply sitting quietly and creating.” — Justin Wade Tam

Photo credit: Jacq Justice

LISTEN: Katie Dahl, “Oh Minnesota”

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Artist: Katie Dahl
Hometown: Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin (Door County)
Song: “Oh Minnesota”
Album: Wildwood
Release Date: September 13, 2019
Label: Leaky Boat Records

In Their Words: “I live in Wisconsin now, but I grew up in Minnesota. And for me, the deep-down tug of Minnesota never really goes away, along with so many memories of elementary school and adolescence and family vacations and first loves. When I was a kid in Minnesota, you’d wear your boots on the school bus and bring your shoes along in your backpack, and if you forgot your shoes at home, you’d have to wear your clumpy boots all day, and the school halls would get all full of salt and mud. A lot of little details like that mysteriously found their way into this song.

“I started writing ‘Oh Minnesota’ a few days before I went to Nashville to record my new album, Wildwood, and I was surprised to find myself writing about Minnesota, because I thought this album was about Door County, Wisconsin, where I live now. And it is, in a way: I think ‘Oh Minnesota’ is exploring to what extent we can ever really leave where we came from.” — Katie Dahl

Photo credit: Kelly Avenson

LISTEN: Jason Tyler Burton, “Fires of ’88”

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Artist name: Jason Tyler Burton
Hometown: Pinedale, Wyoming
Song: “Fires of ’88”
Album: Kentuckian
Release Date: August 26, 2019

In Their Words: “I worked seasonal jobs for a while as a park ranger and climbing guide. I was living out of a minivan, and that transient lifestyle is appealing in so many ways. When you get tired of someplace or some job, you just go find the next one. So this song is about moving on, letting go, and welcoming change. It’s also about not running from your past or trying to reinvent yourself by moving away, because, in my experience, that doesn’t work.” — Jason Tyler Burton

Photo credit: Erica Chambers

LISTEN: Rachel Sumner, “Rocks & Gravel”

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Artist: Rachel Sumner
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “Rocks & Gravel” (Kacy & Clayton cover)
Release Date: August 30, 2019
Label: Sad Luck Dame

In Their Words: “I was so enchanted the first time I saw Saskatchewan duo Kacy & Clayton, I wound up getting tickets to see them the next night as well. I explored their discography and was particularly struck by ‘Rocks & Gravel’ and the natural, timeless quality about it — I was certain it must have been a traditional tune. Nope. Turns out Kacy & Clayton are just that good at tapping into ages’ worth of sorrow and heartbreak and synthesizing it all into modern classics for us to weep along to. For the past few years, I have been performing my own arrangement of ‘Rocks & Gravel’ beside my originals and a handful of other select covers at shows. I recently recorded my version of this song and some of those other covers in my set list rotation and have been releasing them as digital singles throughout the summer. Though this may not be a traditional folk song, I have found from making it my own that it possesses the same durable beauty of tunes that have been passed down for centuries.” — Rachel Sumner

Photo credit: Louise Bichan

LISTEN: Callie McCullough, “Five Dollar Pearls”

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Artist: Callie McCullough
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Five Dollar Pearls”
Album: After Midnight
Release Date: Late Fall/Early Winter

In Their Words: “The idea for this song came to me late one night after someone I was dating hesitated to introduce me to his parents… The melody and the second verse spilled out in a matter of seconds but when I sat down about a week later with my songwriting buddy Ryan Sorestad to bring it to life, it became deeper than that.

It’s that secret fear we have all felt; that some part of who you are or where you come from is not good enough, or won’t measure up in the world. I’ve always been the loud, bold girl with a bit of a wild streak and never the ingénue or the sweet, shy, perfect girl. It’s something I’ve struggled with in learning to be myself.

“I fell in love with the song immediately when it was finished and it became the first song I knew I wanted on this album, paving the way for the rest of this music to come alive. Producer Dustin Olyan and I built this song from the ground up in the studio ourselves, trying to stay true to that intimate, broken emotion that it represents, leaving it stripped-down and simple, focusing on that vulnerable feeling, and I’m so excited to send it out into the world.” — Callie McCullough

Photo credit: Chrissy Nix