Here’s some the best Americana and roots-type music releases for April 12th, 2024. Click the artist or album links to find out more. The artist’s names link to their websites and the CD title links go to either Amazon, iTunes, Bandcamp or the artist’s site for ordering or downloading. A + sign means although not a featured release, it’s a notable album that’s still worth checking out. Also, this page will be updated as I find out about other new releases so check back again.
Will Hoge
Tenderhearted Boys (EDLO Records)
Nashville songwriter Hoge is an emotionally attuned and politically charged Americana songwriter, like the middle ground between Jason Isbell and Joe Strummer. Hoge has a gift for words and melody and a predilection for rocking out. Yet sometimes his songwriting gets lost in the clutter of distorted guitar and driving drums. Tenderhearted Boys, however, reveals a stripped-down Hoge. On the self-produced record, on which Hoge plays every instrument, the songwriting is front and center, couched in only enough instrumentation to serve each tune.(edited from No Depression review)
Various Artists
My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall (Oh Boy Records)
For more than four decades the songwriter, author, and educator Alice Randall has been one of the few Black female writers on Nashville’s Music Row, and the first to pen a #1 hit (Trisha Yearwood’s “XXXs and OOOs”). And while she has seen her songs recorded by multiple generations of country artists – from Glen Campbell and Mo Bandy, to Marie Osmond – none of those artists looked like her. Until now. “Because all the singers of my songs had been white, because country has white-washed black lives out of country space, most of my audience assumed the stars of my songs were all white. I wanted to rescue my Black characters.” What emerges in My Black Country is a celebration of the most American of music genres and the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture. As country music goes through a fresh renaissance today, with a new wave of Black artists enjoying success,
Also new this week…
Diane Birch – Flying on Abraham (Topanga Creek Records)
Alex Harris – Back To Us (Shanachie Entertainment)
Mark Knopfler – One Deep River (British Grove)
Leyla McCalla – Sun Without the Heat (independent) +
Misner And Smith – All Is Song (independent)
Moonsville Collective – A Hundred Highways (Rock Ridge Music)
Nicolette & The Nobodies – The Long Way (ArtHaus Music) +
Connie Smith – Love, Prison, Wisdom and Heartaches (Fat Possum Records) +
Louisa Stancioff – When We Were Looking (independent)
JM Stevens – Nowhere to Land (independent)
Aaron Lee Tasjan – Stellar Evolution (Blue Elan Records)
Emma Zeck – Eclipse (ZeckTone Records)
Coming out soon … Lost Dog Street Band, Iron & Wine, Pokey LaFarge, Grant Langston, Pi Jacobs, Tim Easton, The Bacon Brothers, Charley Crockett, The Reverend Shawn Amos, Curtis McMurtry, Gileah Taylor, Chris Smither, Ruth Moody, David Myles, Anna Tivel, Richard Thompson, Kim Richey, Willie Nelson, Jim Keller, Ana Egge, Swamp Dogg, Yarn, Jesse Dayton, Silverada, The Mavericks, Jesse Daniel and more!
