Artist: Darin & Brooke Aldridge
Hometown: Cherryville, North Carolina
Song: “Once in a While”
Album: This Life We’re Livin’
Release Date: August 6, 2021
Label: Billy Blue Records
In Their Words: “Shane Nicholson’s writing has always showcased such meaning and depth, yet its simplicity always tells a story that we feel is so relatable to everyone. In every aspect of our music our hope is that it makes you smile… even more than ‘Once in a While.'” — Brooke Aldridge
Photo credit: Kim Brantley
Artist: Luke LeBlanc
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Song: “Same Blues”
Album: Only Human
Release Date: July 9, 2021
In Their Words: “It was October 2018 and I’d just moved to Nashville. I didn’t know I’d only live there six months, but as proud as I was to have been born and raised in North Minneapolis, I knew I had to explore the Nashville music scene: the songs, the stories, the mystique. It had been a long day, but I had to make my first move. So I called Roy August. I had met Roy about six years prior when I was 16 and visiting Nashville for the first time, playing an open mic near Music Row. Now in his 80s, Roy had co-written the Oak Ridge Boys’ “Fancy Free,” their first #1 on the Billboard country chart back in 1981. He happened to be in the audience and he loved my music. We kept in touch every so often through Facebook.
“Roy told me to meet him at the Hardee’s for brunch in Lebanon, Tennessee, just northeast of Nashville. We didn’t have a goal in mind, just to catch up and say hello. At the end of our conversation, he pulled out a folded piece of paper and told me it was something he’d been working on. ‘See what you can do; we’ll co-write it.’ I went home and wrote the rest of the lyrics, changed some, added others, and put music to it. With regards to the video, we tried to capture what the song is about: the tug between the status quo and what you’re currently doing versus that thing you really want to do. It portrays someone who has ‘fooled himself into working all day,’ knowing that deep down, the ‘fever won’t die young.’ Cody Hansen at Exist Media filmed and edited the video and John Cleve Richardson appears in the video playing piano.” — Luke LeBlanc
Photo credit: Exist Media
Artist: Misty River
Hometown: London, England
Song: “Walk Me to the River”
Album: Promises
Release Date: October 1, 2021
Label: The Workshop
In Their Words: “Sometimes I think the desire for fundamental change is very like a river; at times its hardly there at all, yet at other times when it’s in full flow it can take your breath away with its ferocity and speed, promising new adventures and transformation. I wrote this song at a time of great change in my personal life. I was questioning if I was to take a leap, who would come along and who would be left behind. I’m a great believer in the power and strength of community and how that helps us to be become more resilient, even during times of great adversity. I am so grateful for the amazing people and new friends I have made on this new musical journey.” — Carmen Phelan, Misty River
Photo credit: Arthur René Walwin
This video is presented by British Underground, filmed at Real World studios by Northern Cowboys Films
Artist: Ramblin’ Ricky Tate
Hometown: Birmingham, Alabama
Song: “Drifting”
Release Date: July 30, 2021
In Their Words: “Everyone has lost a love or felt homesick, I’d bet a lot of those people have reached for a whiskey glass a time or two as well. ‘Drifting’ is a tune I wrote about just that. This song is about having hope for better days to come when you feel down. Recorded and filmed field recording style on location in a 140-year-old building, this song has a natural reverb unlike anything you will hear in a studio. I put my heart into this song and I love how the video turned out and I’m honored to share it with y’all.” — Ramblin’ Ricky Tate
Photo credit: Jordan Hudecz
Artist: Malena Cadiz
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Song: “Motel Evangeline”
Album: Chasing Smoke
Release Date: July 16, 2021
In Their Words: “‘Motel Evangeline’ was inspired by a motel on the coast of Quebec, all about loss and memory, about returning alone to a place that was once meaningful to a relationship. The verses touch on that beautiful, arrogant feeling of youth, that maybe these moments can last forever. ‘Wandering stars in the parking lot / All you lose is all you got / Oh we got lots of time.’ The chorus reminisces about swimming way out past the breakers, wishing the other person was still there. For the video the director Audrey McGee and I were inspired by plant masks and the work of Phyllis Galembo. We used dried flowers to create the ‘creature’ and the tulle as an ephemeral character, like memory difficult to grasp and always transforming.” — Malena Cadiz
Photo credit: Audrey McGee
Artist: Erik Stucky
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Heaven Only Knows”
Album: Good Vibrations
Release Date: August 6, 2021
Label: Binasaur Records
In Their Words: “This song is one of my favorites on the album. It brings a bit of depth and intensity to the concept of Good Vibrations. Specifically, there are things we can do with our time to improve this situation: ‘Heaven only knows what is possible, if we love ourselves like we are capable.’ This has a bit of a double meaning in that love for others is only possible to the extent that we love our individual selves. We are all one, and when we further love our individual self we simultaneously extend that love for the greater whole… humanity, the world, the universe, the never-ending consciousness. Amen.” — Erik Stucky
Photo credit: Chad Krash
Artist: Scythian
Hometown: Front Royal, Virginia
Song: “Buddy Holly” (Weezer cover)
Album: Quaranstream: The Album
Release Date: July 8, 2021
Label: Aerotone Records
In Their Words: “‘Buddy Holly’ was a product of a rabbit trail (no pun intended) while the four of us were practicing for our ill-fated 2020 Roots and Stones CD release tour. We were talking about some adjustments needed in the set when Dan started playing a couple chords, which were the same progression as ‘Buddy Holly.’ We then joked that it would make a rippin’ bluegrass tune, and left it at that. Next thing we knew it was mid 2020 and we had started these online shows that racked up about 30k+ viewers every other week called ‘Quaranstreams.’ We literally survived that whole year off of the amazing goodwill of our fans supporting us and tipping us while we played. The shows were kind of like a reverse SNL, lots of music, and a couple skits featuring a variety of recurring characters, so we thought that this would be a great place to experiment with writing and recording songs to release for our amazing fans.
“We remembered that we wanted to give this song a try, and ended up recording it all in about a day. After it was mixed and mastered, we were racking our brains with how to present this on the stream since we had limited time and wanted to do the song justice, so we took inspiration from the original Spike Jonze-directed video and just added crocheted puppets. We spent a good hour or so cutting out cardboard instruments and making mic stands out of Q-tips, then literally shot the whole thing in about two hours with an iPhone. When we released the video on our live stream for the first time, people were losing their minds, and kept requesting us to play the video every chance they could get. People wanted it so badly that they watched the whole four-hour stream again, just to screen capture the video and bootleg it to other Scythian fans.” — Ethan Dean
Photo credit: Brendan McLean
Artist: Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Song: “New York”
Label: Organic Records
In Their Words: “I always get ideas for videos when I’m listening to mixes in the car. My 20-month-old daughter really took a shine to this song one day while I was listening and started demanding it every time we got in the car… over and over and over. So I had a lot of time to visualize the story. It’s a song I wrote about leaving the house that I grew up in, and kind of saying goodbye to that younger version of myself. Our friend Gretchen Kauffman did such a great job as little Amanda! We had a really fun time.” — Amanda Anne Platt
Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither
Artist: Gabriel Kelley
Hometown: Nashville, Tennesee
Song: “Hard in America”
Release Date: July 2, 2021
Label: Epidemic Sound
In Their Words: “‘Hard in America’ was written as a reflection of the commonality between us all as Americans, both within our hardships and our joys. As we have spent the last almost two years dealing with an almost unmanageable amount of hardship and uncertainty, my goal with this song was to find some form of hope and solace in spaces that remind us we are all the same, all one family in unison. I sat down alone at the piano early one morning towards the end of quarantine with not even the slightest hint of an idea of a song. I just sat down to feel the keys for a little while… to discover what I was feeling underneath. Early mornings with instruments somehow always take me on that journey.
“After being off the road for so long, I had become less tied to my own rooted identity as this traveling/touring artist. This slower pace of life had almost forced me, in a way, to reconnect myself to a deeper aspect of who I was and still am. I went further and further into this common space of the simple human condition. We all need love, we all need hope, we all need a little grace. We all need a smile from time to time. This song fell out in about the time it took to play it down. That’s only happened a few times in my life and when they do they are special to me. It’s like it had been marinating in me without my knowing for the last year and a half and then just jumped out. It’s always been very easy for me to connect with my own material but something about this song made me feel connected to everyone in this beautiful and crooked country.” — Gabriel Kelley
Photo credit: Sunny Davis
Artist: Rachel Sumner
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “Lose My Love”
In Their Words: “A lot of the songs I write are carefully crafted over long stretches of weeks, months, and even years. ‘Lose My Love,’ however, was one of those songs that came to me fully formed in an instant. I was in the shower when I started singing the chorus and realized there was a little film noir playing in my mind underneath it. I rushed out, wrote it down, and let my imaginary movie guide the verses. At the time I was one of the writers and lead singers of the bluegrass band Twisted Pine, so we recorded and included it on our eponymous album released in 2017. After parting ways with the group in 2019, I decided to reclaim and rearrange this song for my live solo shows where it’s become a favorite of mine to play amid the trove of new songs that I’ve been working on for my debut LP — more on that soon, so stay tuned!!” — Rachel Sumner
Photo credit: Hannah Cohen
