Here’s some the best Americana and roots-type music releases for June 24th, 2022. 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.
Hackensaw Boys
Hackensaw Boys (Suns Work Records)
Dozens of musicians have passed through the Hackensaw outfit with members such as Pokey LaFarge spending time within its ever-shifting environs. Co-founder David Sickmen has been in and out of the group, whose membership size has also grown and shrunk with regularity. He is currently firmly ensconced as frontman/singer/songwriter of the once raw string band. This album sticks to traditional bluegrass instrumentation but finds the quartet in a more pop-oriented and reflective state. It may be at odds with the scruffy, unfiltered style his band has previously been known for, but the vulnerability in the lyrics and music feels honest, natural and a refreshing way to propel the Hackensaw Boys forward into their third decade. (edited from Holler review)
Peter Rowan
Calling You From My Mountain (Rebel Records)
A relentlessly curious, brilliant songwriter, Peter Rowan has had the kind of career that would give him ample opportunity to kick back and rest on his laurels now, but his new album shows that his voice is as vital as ever, fueled by the history of our great traditions and excited for their future. Guest spots on the album from friends like Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Shawn Camp, Lindsay Lou, and Mark Howard, not to mention Rowan’s multi-generational band, show that Rowan’s inspiration transcends age. Though the genesis for Calling You From My Mountain came from Hank Williams’ Luke the Drifter personality and Rowan’s idea of writing new songs for this character, he quickly spun in other connections, like his longtime interest in Tibetan music and his Buddhist beliefs and practices, or his love of other American roots legends like Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Guy Clark, Bill Monroe, and Tex Logan (all of whom Rowan’s played and performed with). Throughout, the music sounds like Rowan himself, a modern-day California dharma bum, a man as nourished by a metaphysical interest in the mysteries of the physical universe as he is by the intricacies of handcrafted music making. (from Amazon review)
Joan Shelley
The Spur (No Quarter Records)
Written largely during the pandemic while Shelley was pregnant with their daughter, Talya, its dozen songs deal not with her expectations for motherhood but instead with her difficulties as a daughter and sister, as an attentive observer of the cycles around her lifelong home and her worries about the place’s future, both politically and environmentally. There is death and renewal, romance and retreat, self-doubt and societal hope, all rendered with elegant restraint in her fireside alto. “I had to clean out this junk I’d been dragging around,” Shelley said, “I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a mom, but doing this made that possible. I was scared of hurting a new human, of perpetuating the pain inflicted on me. Music made me a whole person — it allowed for the survival of the softer parts of me,” she said on a FaceTime call, walking through the yard as birds chirped. “It’s a way to be unstuck about it all.” (Edited from New York Times review)
Also new this week…
The Barlow – New Year, Old Me (self-released)
BoDeans – 4 The Last Time (Free & Alive Records)
Caamp – Lavender Days (By and By Records)
Gregory Dwane – XX (Peacedale Records)
Greg Loiacono – Giving It All Away (Blue Rose Music)
Janiva Magness – Hard to Kill (Fathead Records)
Curtis Phagoo – When We Were Young (Written-By Records)
Andrew Weiss and Friends – Sunglass & Ash (Reviver Records)
Coming out in the next few weeks… The Local Honeys, Amanda Shires, Arlo McKinley, Michelle Rivers, The Deslondes, The Old North, Phil Cook, John Moreland, Nick Nace, The Sadies, Michelle Rivers, The Bacon Brothers, Jonah Tolchin, We Banjo 3, Cahalan Morrison, Kelsey Waldon and more …
