A new album is coming from Andrew Leahey & the Homestead, and The Boot’s readers are getting a first listen to one of its songs. Press play below to hear “Queen and King of Smaller Things.”
Leaning more to the rock side of Americana and alt-country, “Queen and King of Smaller Things” finds Leahey professing to his love, “You’re the one I want to follow now.” Leahey co-wrote the song with Jon Latham, “after a major U.S. election,” he tells The Boot.
Americana duo Roses & Cigarettes have a new album coming in late February, and they’re giving The Boot’s readers a first listen to one of its tracks. Press play below to hear “Feel the Fire.”
“Feel the Fire” is a melodic, sweet-sounding-but-rocking song about the beginning of a relationship — that moment when “you can feel the tension building with someone, but no one is making the move,” explains duo member Jenny Pagliaro.
Oklahoma-based singer-songwriter John Calvin Abney is premiering his new song “Get Your House in Order” exclusively for readers of The Boot. Press play below to listen.
Lush harmonies are layered over a dreamy groove on “Get Your House in Order,” a song that’s all about setting yourself straight. The tune appears on Abney’s forthcoming album Coyote, which features instrumental performances from some of Americana’s best musicians, including former Drive By Truckers bassist Shonna Tucker, who provides the track’s pulsing backbone.
“In the last year, I was confronted with a series of events that took the breath out of me … So much was happening. I wanted to be a million places at once, but I was barely able to be present where I was. I knew I had to figure out how to cope, how to adapt and keep moving forward,” Abney explains of the inspiration for the 10 songs on Coyote. “I was writing a lot in the back of the van and the hotels I was staying in … I wasn’t rushing myself. I was just slowly working through everything. It helped keep me going.” READ MORE…
Baby Robot Media is a music publicity and media service agency with employees in Los Angeles, Memphis, Atlanta & New York and represent musicians from all over the world. We specialize in promotional ( PR ) campaigns for albums, singles and videos, tour press, radio, music video production, music marketing, social media campaigns, Spotify campaigns and creating promotional content. Our mission is to help great unknown bands reach a wider audience and to help already successful artists manage their brand identity and continue to thrive. Our music publicists have over 50 years of combined experience in the music industry. We are known as one of the best in the business.
Hank Williams fans, listen up: Singer-songwriter Leslie Tom has assembled a tribute album of sorts to the country icon, and she’s premiering one of its songs, “Hank You Very Much,” with The Boot. Readers can press play below to hear the track.
“Hank You Very Much” — which features Tom’s labelmate, Larry Nix — is a twangy ode to Williams that weaves nods to the legend’s songs into a story about a girl who’s broken up with her beau, John, and is ready to, in Tom’s words, “go back to Texas and hit a honky-tonk and hear good country music.” Tom tells The Boot there are a total of 14 of Williams’ song titles mentioned in the lyrics.
“I’m driving back to Texas / I’m on my lost highway / Got those honky-tonk blues / I want to hear a jukebox play,” Tom sings in the chorus of “Hank You Very Much. “When fiddles and a steel guitar get close enough to touch / I’ll say ‘Hallelujah, Hank you very much!'”
Tom tells The Boot that she and co-writer Linda Koehl wrote “Hank You Very Much” in about two hours. Williams and his music are obvious influences on the song, “but so is every heartbreaker [we] ever suffered.”
“Hank You Very Much” will appear on Tom’s upcoming album, Ain’t It Something, Hank Williams. The 10-track record of both originals and covers reflects Tom’s own life, but intertwines her own stories with those inspired by Williams’ life of love, heartache, addiction and loss. Tom recorded the project at Cinderella Sound Studios in Nashville; it features Lloyd Green on steel guitar, as well as the Infamous Stringdusters‘ Andy Hall on dobro, and was produced by John Macy.
Country artist and former professional cowboy Ross Cooper is premiering his song “Old Crow Whiskey and a Cornbread Moon” exclusively for readers of The Boot.
“Old Crow Whiskey and a Cornbread Moon” is a smooth, classic country ballad that explores blue-collar America and gratitude. “In short, “Old Crow Whiskey and a Cornbread Moon” is about being appreciative for what you have,” Cooper tells The Boot. “About being thankful even when things may not be going your way. Celebrating what you do have instead of worrying about what you don’t, and realizing that it doesn’t take much to be happy.”
When asked about his influences for this new tune, Cooper cites the farmers and ranchers from his home state of Texas: “For me, it’s a tip of the hat to all the ranchers and farmers back home,” he says.
“They are people that break their backs day in and day out to put food on the table. They don’t want for anything and don’t ask for it if they do,” Cooper adds. “That image kind of stayed in my head while we wrote this song.”
To fine tune the sound for “Old Crow Whiskey and a Cornbread Moon,” Cooper enlisted fellow Texan Paul Cauthen to work out the strum pattern and flesh out the lyrics. Cooper had written the song’s first verse and chorus about a month before their co-write, then shelved the song.
“I think he saw exactly what I wanted the song to be,” Cooper says of Cauthen. “It was a blast to write and was simple to finish. It’s one of my favorite songs that I’ve written, and it almost never happened.”
“Old Crow Whiskey and a Cornbread Moon” is Cooper’s latest single, and will appear on his forthcoming album I Rode the Wild Horses.
Americana quartet Kat Myers & the Buzzards are premiering a new song, “Under the Rug,” exclusively for readers of The Boot.
Featuring the smoky-voiced Myers on lead vocals and a pulsing bass groove, “Under the Rug” is an anthem for procrastinators and avoidant people of all kinds. Myers also found inspiration for the song in a Catholic tradition she never quite understood.
“It also goes along with the recurring ‘Owe Everybody Money’ theme of Catholicism, and how many Catholics simply go to confession and tell a priest their sins, then come home and act like all is fine. This was always a very strange phenomenon to me,” Myers explains to The Boot. “So, I suppose that’s how the idea for “Under the Rug” came about. It’s not meant to be a very serious song, but the theme is slightly serious, but I don’t really want to talk about it anymore, [so] let’s just sweep it under the rug.”
After parts of the song rolled around in her mind for over a year, Myers headed into Jackson Browne’s Groove Masters studio to record “Under the Rug.” The song was essentially just a rough draft when she stepped inside.
“The amazing thing is that there was such a good vibe with everybody and in the studio that the song basically finished itself,” Myers says. “It’s hard not to appreciate the history of the space, so we approached the recording in classic rock ‘n’ roll fashion, recording the track live in one day and not shaving off too many of the rough edges.”
Baby Robot Media is a music publicity and media service agency with employees in Los Angeles, Memphis, Atlanta & New York and represent musicians from all over the world. We specialize in promotional ( PR ) campaigns for albums, singles and videos, tour press, radio, music video production, music marketing, social media campaigns, Spotify campaigns and creating promotional content. Our mission is to help great unknown bands reach a wider audience and to help already successful artists manage their brand identity and continue to thrive. Our music publicists have over 50 years of combined experience in the music industry. We are known as one of the best in the business.