and just because this is brilliance….
Steve Earle is one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of his generation. A protege of legendary songwriters Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, he quickly became a master storyteller in his own right, with his songs being recorded by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, The Pretenders, and countless others. 1986 saw the release of his debut record, Guitar Town, which shot to number one on the country charts.
2018 marked the 30th Anniversary of his legendary album Copperhead Road.
Steve Earle & The Dukes are set to release GUY on March 29th, 2019. A return to New West Records, the 16-song set is comprised of songs written by one of his two primary songwriting mentors, the legendary Guy Clark. GUY is Steve Earle's 19th studio album.
GUY appears ten years after his Grammy Award winning album TOWNES, his tribute to his other songwriting mentor, Townes Van Zandt. Produced by Earle and recorded by his longtime production partner Ray Kennedy, GUY features his latest, and possibly best, incarnation of his backing band The Dukes including Kelley Looney on bass, Chris Masterson on guitar, Eleanor Whitmore on fiddle & mandolin, Ricky Ray Jackson on pedal steel guitar, and Brad Pemberton on drums & percussion. GUY also features guest appearances by fellow Guy Clark cohorts Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Terry Allen, Jerry Jeff Walker, Mickey Raphael, Shawn Camp, Verlon Thompson, Gary Nicholson, and the photographer Jim McGuire.
Dean Lewis is an Australian singer and songwriter from Sydney. He is best known for his debut single "Waves", which was certified triple platinum in Australia in 2017, and his 2018 single "Be Alright", which reached number one in Australia and was certified platinum within four weeks of release. Lewis is due to release his debut studio album A Place We Knew on 22 March 2019.
"Be Alright" perfectly captures gut-wrenching heartbreak that comes with the hardships of a break-up. But while it deals candidly with anguish, the chorus swells with hope; a recognition that this pain is only temporary, with Lewis emotively singing "It's never easy to walk away/ Let her go/ it'll be ok". "Be Alright" has already amassed over 200million streams and is the first taste of Lewis' forthcoming album and signals a newfound conviction in his own storytelling and singing capabilities.
Lewis' debut EP Same Kind Of Different, gave us chart-topping single, "Waves," which was added to Triple J rotation, has had over 122 million streams, 31 million video views and was the second biggest Australian single of 2017. Suddenly, Lewis was gracing the stages of Europe's biggest television shows, playing headline shows and festivals slots across Australia and the US. "Waves" even appeared on programs like Suits, Riverdale and Grey's Anatomy.
Colter Wall is a young Saskatchewan born songwriter and performing musician.
Steeped in Old Timey material and traditional Americana, Wall's sound is comprised of resonate and raw baritone vocals, Folk and Bluegrass style guitar and banjo picking, steady kick-drum stomping, and visually provoking, story telling lyrics.
Wall Draws influence from legends of the past such as Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt, and The Band, as well as more modern Americana pioneers including Shovels and Rope, Jack White, Ray Lamontagne, and Shakey Graves.
Despite only recently beginning his musical career, Colter Wall has been seen in the company of Saskatchewan's infamous gritty bluegrass trailblazers,The Dead South. Wall has had the opportunity to open for The Dead South on several occasions with more show's upcoming. In addition to racking up memorable live shows across the province, Wall is planning on releasing an EP in the summer of 2015 and has been busy recording at Regina's own Studio One. From dive bars to fundraiser galas, Colter Wall has a history of leaving audiences in shock at the maturity of his voice as well as his songwriting.
As a teenager, Scott picked up the bass guitar on a whim. Natural talent and the lure of a challenge drove him to be the best musician he could. Continuing to play the bass, he also began to explore guitar, piano, and singing, and discovered his love for songwriting. With the encouragement of a mentor, he studied music in college and chose to pursue a career.
Since then, he's shared the stage with some of the greatest artists of modern music – Ricky Skaggs, Alison Krauss, Barry Gibb of the BeeGees, Bruce Hornsby, Brad Paisley, Peter Frampton, Steven Curtis Chapman, Emmylou Harris, and many more. He's a full time member of Ricky Skaggs's band Kentucky Thunder, a position he's held for three years.
Scott's songs have received honors from the International Songwriting Competition, John Lennon Songwriting Contest, and American Songwriter Magazine's 30th Anniversary Contest, and he has numerous cuts on other artists'albums.
2018 was a pivotal year in the growth of Nashville-based Mulvahill's career. He hit the road, this time as an opener and no longer a sideman, on tour runs with Lauren Daigle, Robert Cray, Matt Wertz, John McLaughlin, Sierra Hull, Andrew Peterson, and Ricky Skaggs. Mulvahill released his first full-length album, Himalayas, in the fall of 2018, with the backing of a successful Kickstarter campaign that rallied his fans in their belief of him and his music.
Already in 2019, Mulvahill has embarked as the headliner on part one of his Himalayas Tour, with six of the shows selling out. This week, he joins Daigle again on her sold-out "Look Up Child" Spring Tour. Mulvahill is in the planning stages of part two of his Himalayas tour, with tour dates to be announced soon, and he is already confirmed for multiple high-profile shows and festivals including Mountain Stage, Rhythm and Blooms, Blue Plums, Winnetka Music Festival, and more to come.
Julie Odell is a New Orleans artist who writes songs with surprising turns and sudden drop offs, one minute belting lyrics with all her being on top of crunchy hollow-body guitar, then interluding into delicate ethereal melodies barely fingerpicking the guitar and leaning into her band (Kenny Murphy on bass, Jonathan Arceneaux on drums) for soft yet powerful support, which then builds into an unexpected groove and into a dreamy swamp pop ending. Multiple stories take place in each song which is the main reasoning behind her chaos/calm/chaos style of writing, meant to portray the ups and downs of life.
Odell is currently working on her debut full length album to be released springtime 2019.
The enigmatic songwriter was raised in subdued North East England and not unlike many others, Nancy dressed & acted in ways that seemed out-of-the-ordinary. Combined with his then-unhelpful androgynous and abnormal physical features, "Nancy" was both a punchline &label throughout the songwriter's formative years.
Beginning as a form of escapism a pop music obsession began. It's these past lives & vivid influences that are reimagined and regurgitated into debut Mysterious Visions.
Within 8 weeks in the real world, Nancy has been been described as a musical auteur, a surrealist king, a mysterious newcomer, a provocateur, both male and female, a necromancer, in the same sentence both classy and trashy, weird and wonderful.
Recorded, produced, art-directed by Nancy the none-the-same 7-songs-long 'EP' is proof of concept. An explosive kaleidoscopic vision of theatricality, romance and melancholy, a cocktail of sassy lo-fi cabaret and art-dream-pop with contemporary deformities, a Sgt. Peppers-for-degenerates body of work to get lost in; best understood with a front-to-back listen.
Like cigarettes, its highly addictive and probably bad for you.
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