Glide has debuted the video for Josh Merritt’s “Live With That,” a contagious honkytonk singalong with some superb guitar, piano, and horns that make boogie like a B side to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps.” Merritt throws together the pop charm of Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats alongside a southeast dose of hill country credibility.
Merritt is a native of Owensboro, Kentucky and inherited the grit and honesty so essential to heartland culture. Having spent the better part of the past decade honing his chops on the Southern tour circuit, Merritt slides effortlessly into his own on debut studio release Reynolds Station, a stirring collection of autobiographical songs that recount his tumultuous childhood in the clutches of rural America’s amphetamine epidemic. A countrified concept album, it’s a grim testament to the tragedy that has upended so many lives and led to the loss of both faith and fortitude. Taken from his young mother as she struggled with drug addiction and raised by his grandparents, Merritt experienced the effects of substance abuse at close range.