These doggy days of July and August invite us to stay indoors, and I’m fine with that, because I can listen to records. With so many good albums arriving and with so much noise and nonsense out there to sift through, I felt inspired to pause and recognize some of the best recent and local music being released in our Americana space, especially those that might be off the popular radar. We’ll all have opinions about the new Tyler Childers album soon enough. Ketch Secor’s new one is a major statement that I’m working on covering in depth. But here are profiles of eight recent records with Nashville origins and originality. I’m grateful to our Local Brew host Ana Lee for suggesting some of these titles.
Phil Madeira - Falcon
In 2012, Phil Madeira instigated the stunning, multi-artist concept Mercyland: Hymns For The Rest Of Us, and since then he’s been one of Nashville’s guiding lights, especially because he’s held a space for enlightened Christianity in the largely secular roots music ecosystem. He’s also a funky, rich, dynamic keyboard player who’s toured with Emmylou Harris for almost two decades, and he can be heard regularly with that backing band’s side project the Red Dirt Boys. Phil’s latest is Falcon, a beautifully rendered songwriting gem for lovers of Randy Newman or Jimmy Webb. As usual, he calls on our better angels, as in the featured track “Lesson Of Love,” addressing a parent who can’t see a gay son as his own. The song concludes a thoughtful and rewarding collection. At the same time, he dropped a new Trio Live album with his trusted compadres Bryan Owings on drums and Chris Donohue on bass.
Ben de la Cour - New Roses
Since he hit a lot of folks’ radar with the relatively straightforward folk album The High Cost Of Living Strange in 2018, Brooklyn-raised, Nashville-based Ben de la Cour has trended in an ambitiously stranger direction. The polymath eccentric Jim White produced Ben’s 2023 album Sweet Anhedonia, and New Roses deepens Ben’s commitment to exploring that word: a depression symptom that leaves one numb to life’s joys. Yet somehow, this isn’t altogether grim. It’s sonically searching and lyrically mesmerizing. He conceived this risky, rewarding record largely alone on GarageBand with a few guests like the great singers Elizabeth Cook and Emily Scott Robinson. The absurd meets the wondrous on “Stuart Little Killed God (on 2nd Ave)” while his weird-ass, distortion field take on Hank’s “Lost Highway” is pretty amazing if you can commit to it. If you admire James McMurtry and John Fullbright and you don’t know Ben’s music, turn your ear his way for something just as smart but more dangerous.
Missy Raines & Allegheny - Love & Trouble
Love & Trouble is the second release from Missy Raines & Allegheny, since the star bluegrass bass player, singer, and songwriter reconfigured her ensemble from a progressive string jazz band to the mountain bluegrass sound on which she was raised. The lore and land of Appalachia are ever-present in its ten tracks. In her own song “Yanceyville Jail,” Raines recalls an amusing story about Jimmy Martin getting, um, waylaid on his way to perform at Camp Springs, NC. She also contributes the new but old-sounding “Eula Dorsey,” an immigrant tale and a flipped murder ballad that connects her native West Virginia to old Scotland. Her covers are spot-on too, especially the insightful and devastating Nathan Bell song “Coal Black Water.” And it’s a band, so Raines passes lead vocals around. Fiddler Ellie Hakanson delivers the leftovers leavin’ song "Scraps From Your Table” by Hazel Dickens, while mando fella Tristan Scroggins sings the waltzing country weeper “Future On Ice.” And to close, they adapt an Earl Klugh smooth jazz tune to Dawg music style, to show they still love that hip, unlonesome sound too.
Daniel Kimbro - Carpet In The Kitchen
Technically residing in East Tennessee, Daniel Kimbro is a Nashville-centric bass player known for his work with the various projects of dobro mojo Jerry Douglas, and Jerry’s been exclaiming about Daniel’s overall musicianship for years. On Carpet In The Kitchen Kimbro debuts as a songwriter and singer, and it couldn’t be more auspicious. On this self-produced, eight-song opus he’s joined by a lean but stellar cast: Mike Baggetta on electric guitars, Jordan Perlson on drums and percussion, and Douglas on two tracks. Daniel has a friendly, well-tuned voice in the James Taylor mold and a sharp eye for detail, as in the opener “Loyston,” which grips with its story of a town drowned by a TVA dam. “Keep On Livin” is a sweet novelistic life story of a couple rendered with an artisan’s sense of form and groove. He serves the instrumental side with “Blue Eyed Waltz,” a contemplative guitar instrumental that lets us hear Kimbro’s big acoustic bass in solo mode. “A Killin Song,” a darkly sobering history of armaments - and their price to our souls - must be heard.
Sister Sadie - All Will Be Well
There aren’t many voices telling us that “All Will Be Well” these days, but I’ll take it on faith from the five women in the harmonious, hot-picking band Sister Sadie. They’ve been through big changes since coming together almost accidentally as a bluegrass supergroup in 2012, but founding members Deanie Richardson (fiddle) and Gena Britt (banjo) have cultivated a group packed with versatile musicians and splendid voices. Here, the band moves forward with an embrace of a specific past, i.e. the kind of country music that brought so many of us into the fold in the 1990s, and it’s not just the wonderful cover of Nanci Griffith’s “I Wish It Would Rain” that leaves me feeling this way. “First Time Liar,” written by Richardson and bandmate Dani Flowers and sung by IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year Jaelee Roberts, with its sweet steel and twin fiddles, eases my pining for Patty Loveless. Flowers sings lead on the closer “Let The Circle Be Broken,” a brave and dark song about abuse and generational trauma. This project takes a bluegrass band deep into new territory, and as the title suggests, it ought to work out fine.
Dallas Ugly - See Me Now
I was fixin’ to have a Mipso-sized hole in my heart since that searching North Carolina quartet went on “infinite hiatus” this spring, but along comes Nashville indie pop outfit Dallas Ugly to fill it with their second album. I know fiddler/singer Libby Weitnauer and bass player Eli Broxham from our trad folk and acoustic community, but it was actually this band with guitarist Owen Burton that brought them to Nashville as a gang (from Chicago) in 2020. They’re one of those wonderful bands that cherishes roots while loving the sparkle and harmonies of power pop. The opening, title track is a song-of-the-summer dish of psychedelic sunshine. I felt the Cranberries overtones even before I read it in their bio. “Circumstances” is jangly, expansive and flat gorgeous. A variety of lead vocals adds to the character and fun of this over-too-soon record.
Nighthawk - Street Dog
Nashville native Parker Hawkins aka Nighthawk had his original musical epiphany in New Orleans, and those Big Easy spirits color his second album Street Dog, from its cover painting to its slinky title track. Hawkins is a respected side guy who plays bass for the blues breakout band Piper and the Hard Times and the eclectic Lynn Taylor and the Barflies. Fellow Barfly and East Nashville maven Dave Coleman co-produced this riverine album of southern city soul, Americana pop, and swinging country blues. It’s relentlessly creative and offbeat, and the horns and harmony vocals are deliciously evocative of Leon Redbone and Dr. John. The superb band includes multi- instrumental genius Rory Hoffman and trombone player Roy Agee. “Dancing Flame” is joyfully psychedelic. “Fried Green” is a stellar Steely Dan style instrumental led by Parker’s twin guitar parts. Just when you think you have this one figured out, it’ll lead you down another picturesque alley.
Chris Emmert - Fool From The Foothills
There’s a natural and welcoming vibe to Chris Emmert’s debut solo album, as he spins yarns, waxes philosophical, and wonders about the great beyond, supported by a laid back string band. The title track opens the album with a bluegrassy ode to his eastern Ohio homeland. It takes a nimble mind and performing style to pull off a Woody Guthrie style talking blues, and Emmert does a great job as he casts a jaundiced eye on our post-modern world in “Talking Laughin’ Blues.” “Johnny O” and “Falling Oak” tell stories in the classic balladeer manner. It sounds like a high-rent field recording, but the pickers (especially the fiddler and resonator guitar player) are not fooling around.
