“Oh gosh, it’s a sad story, the loss of a keystone species in the Maine woods,” Zak Kendall tells American Songwriter in an interview about GoldenOak’s latest song “Ash”—premiering today (June 16). The single is their fourth and final single ahead of the Maine-based duo’s forthcoming album Room To Grow, due out June 25. READ MORE…
“I listen to a lot of soul music and a lot of funk,” says Dylan Chambers of his musical tastes. “I will listen to the Temptations as much as I listen to Prince or Parliament or James Brown. That’s my ebb and flow, those two types of music.”
Chambers, who handles guitar duties as well as the singing and songwriting, manages to cover both of those genres on his new singles “Some Kind Of Happy” and “Breakdown,” produced by his longtime collaborator Stefan Litrownik. The latter is a funk workout that revs up the intensity and angst, with Chambers cathartically belting over a relentless groove. But the former catches a much mellower vibe, ambling along amiably as a kind of emotional flip side to the other track.
With his fifth album, Spencer Burton hikes through stifling solitude, winding through majestic mountain peaks down to bubbling creek beds to both cleanse and blossom anew. He seeks to find himself and ultimately diverts through treacherous terrain for the answers to life’s most gnawing regrets and blunders. READ MORE…
“It’s such a cruel feeling to be standing next to someone who has checked out of a relationship yet is still going through the motions with you,” Katie Jo lamented to American Songwriter.
Born in Wichita, based out of Los Angeles and inspired by country legends like Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, Katie Jo is no stranger to the type of heartache that walks hand-in-hand with the aforementioned scenario. In fact, the retro-Americana songwriter explores that very topic in her new dreamy single, “I Don’t Know Where Your Heart’s Been.”
“With this song, I wanted to capture that awful, heart-sinking moment in time when a relationship hasn’t quite ended, but you both know it’s over,” Jo explained. “For me, this tune is really a little capsule of that, saying ‘indifference is the opposite of love.’ Whether it’s a puppy-love crush that isn’t reciprocated or a longterm partner who has one foot out the door, that holding pattern before a breakup is sometimes almost worse than the heartbreak itself. It’s even worse when it’s clear someone else is in the picture.”
David Quinn is a ramblin’ man. “It’s like what they say about some sharks: if they’re not moving, they die,” he remarks. The Indiana musician demonstrated such aching need to always be on the move with his 2019 studio debut, Wanderin’ Fool ? and it seems not much has changed. His second record, Letting Go, falls quite in line with its predecessor, a musical companion piece drenched in his wood-smoked vocal and hearty blend of folk-rock and stone cold country.
The heart-wrenching “Mommy and Daddy” grapples with a universal truth that evolution has not yet alleviated. NYC-bred rock & roller Shmitt, who has performed and recorded with legends like Levon Helm and Gordan Gano, steps back into his artistry with a harrowing vignette of his once-spirited parents closing in on the end of their lives.
“My mom was a fox. She had long hair and was just a beautiful woman. My dad was a handsome, tall man,” he describes. Shmitt’s mother played the drums and his father played guitar. His sister wrote concertos, wore long black dresses, and conducted orchestras. READ MORE…