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Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Mattie Schell combines the heartfelt honesty of Americana with the raw power of soul, creating a sound that is both fresh and rooted in tradition. Her debut solo album, Everything Means Nothing, produced by JD Simo, showcases Schell’s soulful vocals on a set of originals that explore the universal emotions of love, loss, and redemption. From tender ballads to anthemic tracks, Everything Means Nothing establishes Schell as one of the most powerful and engaging new artists to emerge on the Americana scene. Schell began her professional career as a member of River Kittens, a St. Louis-based band celebrated for its harmonies, heartfelt lyrics,and raw energy. Recently, Schell has been a frequent performer with the Allman Betts Family Reunion, a Southern rock collective led by Devon Allman and Duane Betts.

Compass Records is proud to present BLUE ON BLUE, the new album by renowned singer, writer and ukulele-player Sylvie Simmons. It’s the follow-up to her revelatory 2014 debut SYLVIE—an album that The Guardian hailed as “One of the most beautiful albums of the year. Spell-binding,” and Devendra Banhart called “Fragile and fearless, direct and poetic, timeless and absolutely beautiful.” Rolling Stone said, “She’s not only good, she’s good. Had this same album been newly issued in mono and credited to an obscure mid-‘60s flower child, the word ‘legendary’ might be used by more than a few writers who’d swear they’d purchased it back then.”

Her unforgettable songs, delicate but sensual and bold, earned unanimous praise and rave reviews, with comparisons to a young Marianne Faithfull, a punk Piaf, and a female Leonard Cohen—as well as a prime slot in the 2018 Ethan Hawke/Jesse Peretz movie Juliet, Naked, and shout-outs from fellow musicians including Rosanne Cash, Brian Wilson and Elvis Costello.

If her first album seemed to appear out of nowhere, in a way it did. For three and a half decades, before coming out as a singer-songwriter, Sylvie—born in London and based in California—had been an acclaimed rock writer, and the author of books including her celebrated biographies of Serge Gainsbourg, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen. It was after touring around the world for more than a year behind I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen (her 2012 book which now has over 25 translations), singing his songs and accompanying herself on a ukulele, that Sylvie did the near-impossible and crossed over into writing and recording her own songs, with the encouragement and accompaniment of Howe Gelb of Giant Sand, who produced her first album.

In 2017, Sylvie returned to Tucson to make her second album with Gelb. But the work came to an abrupt halt. That first evening, after recording first takes of five of the songs, Sylvie suffered a dreadful accident that left her with multiple broken bones, nerve damage and an unusable left hand. Life became “A bit of a horror story.” A long and painful period of surgeries and rehabilitation. Finding herself unable to play several of the songs she’d written for the album with her damaged hand, Sylvie wrote some new songs. She recorded them in different studios in-between treatments and her writing work.

But listening to BLUE ON BLUE, you’d never know there had been a problem. Seamless and beautiful, with its memorable songs and spacious, unexpected arrangements, once again it highlights her intimate vocals and intelligent lyrics that at first listen seem dreamy and gentle but hold hidden barbs and pain. From the opening song, “Keep Dancing,” where she sings “The man said you were dancing with no shoes on amid the broken glass and dog sh- and cigarette ends,” you know you’re in for no ordinary ride. Or “Nothing”, a strange, dark, childhood memory with the lines, “Now I’m running for the train/Same train everyone is running for/ Before there’s nothing to take you where you want to go/Maybe I’ll find you there/ Maybe I’ll find nothing.”

“Not In Love” sounds like a lost Roy Orbison song; “Sweet California” is a bittersweet love song to her adopted state; and “The Thing They Don’t Tell You About Girls” finds her balanced on a roof, “Just to hear my heart still beat.”

The album ends with a duet, “1000 Years Before I Met You”—Sylvie and Gelb toughing it out like a countrified Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, with Sylvie singing, “Well go on, put your clothes on and walk right out the door/Don’t want to see you when the sun creeps through the blind/ If you’re thinking I’ll come running and beg you back for more/Then baby you’ve been drinking more than I.”

As one writer noted, “These are songs that persuade us to curl up with them, then bite when we’re warm and cozy.”

The band on BLUE ON BLUE consists of Gelb, Thoger Lund, Gabriel Sullivan and Brian Lopez from Tucson, plus Australian Matt Wilkinson and Jim White (Wrong-Eyed Jesus) from Athens, Georgia. Sylvie plays ukulele—an instrument she first started playing in 2005.

“I’d always thought of the uke as a toy”, she says, “a little handful of happiness. But not any more. From the moment I picked it up, I fell in love. A ukulele has a sad, fractured sweetness, like a broken harp. And a modesty. It doesn’t try to impress you, it almost apologizes for being there.” Abandoning her piano and guitar, her songs “came through this tiny instrument with all their heartbreak and truth intact.”

During his years as lead singer and main songwriter of Toad the Wet Sprocket, Glen Phillips helped to create the band’s elegant folk/pop sound with honest, introspective lyrics that forged a close bond with their fans. When Toad went on hiatus, he launched a solo career with Abulum, and stayed busy collaborating with other artists on various projects including Mutual Admiration Society, with members of Nickel Creek and Remote Tree Children, an experimental outing with John Morgan Askew.

“Until recently, I’ve seldom allowed myself to stay in one place for very long,” Phillips says, explaining the genesis of his new album, THERE IS SO MUCH HERE. “I was lucky during the COVID lockdown to move in with my girlfriend, now fiancée, and to stay home for the longest stretch I’ve had since the birth of my daughter, 20 years ago. I began noticing the little things. After a life of travel and seeking out peak experiences, I began to appreciate the subtle beauty of sitting still.

“I’ve been playing a songwriting game with Texas folksinger Matt The Electrician, for about ten years. Every Friday, he sends out a title. We have a week to write a song that includes it. The process allows me to write songs I wouldn’t write on my own. When my friend John [Morgan Askew] asked me to come up to his studio and make music, I said, ‘Yes!’ I collected a bunch of the new songs and headed up to Bocce Studios, in Vancouver, WA. John invited drummer Ji Tanzer and bass player – / – multi-instrumentalist Dave Depper along. When we started playing, I wasn’t sure we were making an album, but as the process unfolded, the songs began to make sense to me.

Phillips’ previous solo record, SWALLOWED BY THE NEW, was about grief, a post-divorce outing while THERE IS SO MUCH HERE finds Phillips writing love songs again focusing on gratitude, beauty and staying present. “With this batch of songs, I was suddenly hopeful again, knowing you can never know what the outcome of any action, or inaction, is going to be. There’s no pure happy ending – the world is a mess, the future is uncertain – but I find found truth in the poet Mary Oliver’s words: ‘Attention is the beginning of devotion.’ I was suddenly in a state of being that wasn’t about my loss. I woke up and things felt doable again.”

The 11 tracks on the album move between quiet love songs and outright rockers that consider the multi-faceted meanings hidden in our everyday lives. “Stone Throat” is a midtempo rocker that looks at a couple in a new relationship, trying to find the balance between desire and responsibility, or as Phillips sings, “trying to find the balance, between the sacred and the street.” There’s a hint of new wave ska in the rhythm of “I Was a Riot,” a song that casts a compassionate eye on the end of a relationship. “The arrangement nods to Joe Jackson’s Look Sharp,” Phillips says. “Graham Mabey is one of the greatest bass players of all time, so we had him in mind when laying down the bass part.”

The COVID lockdown-inspired “The Sound of Drinking,” is an appreciation of the familiar things in life, like drinking a glass of water on your back porch. Phillips plays soft acoustic guitar and sighs a lyric of gratitude for simple pleasures.

“Call The Moondust” is the most metaphysical song in the set. There’s a dash of secular gospel in Depper’s piano, and ambient effects that suggest the vastness of the cosmos. Phillips delivers an emotional performance over a tense arrangement that hints at the wonders of the universe. “The beauty of life is in its mystery,” Phillips states. “If we think we have an answer, we’re deluding ourselves. Everything in creation produces a vibration. The universe itself is a song. The subset of human songwriting is a tiny portion of all the harmony in the universe.

“As I sat still during the lockdown, I realized how much is always here – in the space around me, in the sensations of my body, in the sounds and smells and tastes and thoughts that emerge and drift away. It’s not a novel concept, but it is a novel experience when you’ve spent your life running from one thing to another.”

Ultimately, as Phillips reflects on the album, he shares: “This is an album about showing up for what is and letting it be enough.”

A San Franciscan now calling Tennessee home, Nicki Bluhm possesses a modern, clear-eyed perspective that grabs the heart and keeps you holding on to every word. 

Bluhm’s music career began in the Cow Hollow area of San Francisco, where she recorded two solo albums and co-founded Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers. The band wrote and performed their own music and recorded covers nostalgic to their childhoods, including the Hall and Oates classic “I Can’t Go For That.” After gaining widespread attention for their “Van Sessions” on YouTube, they toured internationally and recorded two albums as a band.  

The band’s meteoric ascent into the public eye had its obvious blessings, but it came with challenges as well, particularly for Bluhm’s creative process. Says Bluhm, “It’s been confusing learning how to move away from defining success in an algorithmic way; how many clicks and likes and views you can get. These past few years have been a process of trying to articulate my authentic voice, which has taken a lot of self-reflection, vulnerability, and to be honest, therapy.” In 2017 Bluhm made the decision to leave California to forge a career as a solo artist in Nashville. Her ensuing solo album, To Rise You Gotta Fall (2018), plumbed the depths of hard goodbyes and hopeful beginnings. Produced by Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, Calexico) and recorded in the legendary Sam Phillips Recording Services in Memphis, the album exhibited a natural blending of Tennessee sound and Bluhm’s West Coast roots, which she jokes as being her ‘CaliMemphis’ sound.     

In 2020, Bluhm embarked on creating her new album with Los Angeles producer Jesse Noah Wilson. Releasing in June of 2022, Avondale Drive is a masterful exploration of what it means to be fully yourself, rather than a vessel for the expectations of others. “This album is a lot about building trust back in myself. Finding my own inner compass and aligning it to my authentic self,” she says. “When you go through a lot of trauma, divorce, estrangement… you learn that you don’t have to repeat the patterns of the past or continue to identify with the old story.”    

Recorded in Bluhm’s home in East Nashville, and featuring the talents of luminaries like Oliver Wood, James Pennebaker, Jay Bellerose, Jen Condos, Erik Slick, Erin Rae, Karl Denson, A.J. Croce and more, Avondale Drive combines nostalgic country-rock with distinctly modern, sharp lyricism—an apt contrast for the process of studying one’s past in order to make a better future. Opening the album is “Learn to Love Myself,” about the self-reflection that comes when you don’t have a person around to distract you from your own flaws. “A friend and I joked about how when you revert to living alone you realize that a lot of your frustrations weren’t really about the other person, they were merely projections of our own insecurities.” The song’s 60s country-pop naiveté is perfectly tongue-in-cheek as Bluhm sings: “I guess I’ve perfected the art of placing the blame / it’s just so easy cursing your name.” A rousing chorus of “If I don’t have you / I guess I’ll have to learn to love myself” has all the perfect happy-sad contradiction of Leslie Gore insisting on crying at her own party. 

Bluhm’s deft self-awareness is all the more apparent in “Love to Spare” which Bluhm co-wrote with songwriter A.J. Croce. “We came up with the line ‘I’ve got love to share but none to spare’ out of the sheer confusion of middle-aged dating and the idea that it’s OK to share love without giving it away.” The song’s easygoing manner and the friendly back-and-forth between Bluhm and Croce convey the comfort and sometimes humor in knowing your personal boundaries.  

The heat is kicked up a notch for “Feel,” a juxtaposition of sentiments and time signatures. When Bluhm developed the song with producer Jesse Noah Wilson, Wilson said: “it was like two different songs…I thought they sounded cool as two totally different things working together.” That tension between the blues and funk, between frustration and knowing that ‘this too shall pass,’ is followed by the satisfying exhale of “Sweet Surrender” which aptly defines a crucial lesson in the human experience – ‘It takes a lifetime to learn who we are and you gotta earn every scar.” 

“Writing songs is often a way for me to talk myself down when my ruminating mind won’t stop,” Bluhm says, “I have to remind myself that it’s important to sit with hard feelings, to know what I’m in control of and more importantly of what I’m not. To learn how to be comfortable within the discomfort. The songs I tend to write are typically what become the mantras I need to hear most.” Eric Slick plays the drums on this track, and the Wurlitzer piano adds to the song’s sepia-toned, lean-back-and-let-go sensibility. 

Bluhm’s folk influences shine in “Juniper Woodsmoke,” where she looks back at her 10-year marriage to musician Tim Bluhm. The song begins as a 6/8 ballad as Bluhm recalls good memories. “Who says it’s a failure?” she sings, shifting into a sentimental waltz signature. A gorgeous fiddle solo played by James Pennebaker evokes a heartfelt goodbye. “Though we may never ever settle the score,” Bluhm sings, “It don’t matter / ‘Cause it won’t be what it was before.”   

The second half of the album shifts more to the present day, bringing in texture and fresh energy. “Friends (How To Do It),” a duet with Oliver Wood (The Wood Brothers), is an amusing shake of the head at the follies of dating in the modern world, while “Mother’s Daughter” is a rallying cry for survivors of harassment and sexual assault. “How long till you believe her?” Bluhm wonders. “She is a woman / She is her mother’s daughter / only getting stronger.” “Fool’s Gold” is a stylistic nod to the theatrical sonic landscape of Ennio Morricone as it laments the many false promises and ulterior motives women navigate through in the male-dominated recording industry. 

The final two tracks of Avondale Drive are reminiscent of the beginnings and endings in Bluhm’s previous album, but there is a distinctly new, mature perspective. “Leaving Me (Is the Loving Thing to Do)” is a heart-wrenching ballad about the moment of realization that a relationship is over. “Speaking the truth and hearing the truth isn’t easy, but it’s better than prolonging the inevitable,” Bluhm says. “At the end of a relationship, sometimes the truth is the only scrap of kindness we have left to offer.” Finally, Bluhm looks ahead with high hopes in “Wheels Rolling,” a windows-down, hit-the-gas banger. “This song really goes back to the overarching theme of trusting yourself, trusting the universe and trusting it’ll all work out as it should. Calling off the war with what IS.”   

Following appearances and collaborations with artists such as Phil Lesh, Dawes, The Band of Heathens, Little Feat, and The Infamous Stringdusters, Bluhm’s creative confidence is well-won, and her authentic voice and songwriting is all the more apparent on Avondale Drive.

Laura Cortese and the Dance Cards have a vision for their band’s sound: bold and elegant, schooled in the lyrical rituals of folk music and backed by grooves that alternately inspire Cajun two-stepping and rock-n-roll hip swagger. Cellist Valerie Thompson (cello/vox), fiddler Jenna Moynihan (fiddle/vox), and bassist Natalie Bohrn (bass/vox) pair their sophisticated string arrangements and rich vocal harmonies to band leader Laura Cortese’s poignant and powerful singing. For their forthcoming album, the band is exploring their special and less common instrumentation with the support of Sam Kassirer, album producer of folk-pop favorites like Lake Street Dive and Joy Kills Sorrow.

The new record has a wide emotional and sonic scope. The four voices are just as much instruments as they are providers for lyric and harmony. At times its rowdy, delicate and cinematic. The result is a sound that can start as a string band, and morph into a string quartet, female acappella group, or indie band; all while staying honest and true to their identity as folk instrumentalists. Watching them on the main stage at a summer folk festival, or tearing it up late-night at a club, you get the sense that they might snap some fiddle strings or punch a hole in the bass drum. This is post-folk that seriously rocks.

Cortese grew up in San Francisco and moved to Boston to study violin at Berklee College of Music. She has since immersed herself in the city’s vibrant indie music scene and enjoyed a busy sideman career, which has included appearances with Band of Horses at Carnegie Hall, Pete Seeger at Newport Folk Festival, and Patterson Hood and Michael Franti for Seeger’s ninetieth birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden. Her vocals and fiddle have been featured prominently on numerous albums including Rose Cousin’s Juno award winning album “We have Made a Spark”, Arc Iris fronted by Jocie Adams (Formerly of the Low Anthem) and on “Wild Flowers” the newest release by Belgium based Bony King.

Jenna Moynihan is an acclaimed fiddler at the forefront of a new generation of acoustic musicians and is a graduate of Berklee College of Music. Her unique style is rooted in the Scottish tradition, with influences from the sounds of Appalachia. Jenna’s love of the music has taken her across the U.S., Canada, France & Scotland, performing with various groups including Darol Anger, The Folk Arts Quartet, Atlantic Seaway, Matt Glaser, Våsen, Hamish Napier (Back of the Moon), Maeve Gilchrist, Bruce Molsky, Fletcher Bright, Courtney Hartman (Della Mae), at Festival InterCeltique (Brittany, France), Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, and as a soloist with Hayley Westenra (Celtic Woman) at Symphony Hall in Boston.

Cellist-songwriter-composer, Valerie Thompson, grew up a classical cellist in a household filled with the music of Bach, The Beatles, The Chieftains and the blues. Entranced by dance music in her teens, she supplemented her formal cello studies by attending summer folk camps and studying Irish step-dance and American clogging. She graduated with honors from the Berklee College of Music and holds a Masters of Music in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory with honors. She has shared the stage with acclaimed jazz pianist, Fred Hersch; indie-rock icon, Amanda Palmer; multimedia artist, Christopher Janney; and CMH Records’, Vitamin String Quartet (including a guest appearance on CW’s TV show, Gossip Girl.) In addition to performing with the Dance Cards, Valerie has toured nationally and internationally with musical projects Fluttr Effect (world music-infused progressive rock,) Long Time Courting (neo-traditional Irish/ American quartet) and Goli (songdriven chamber duo).

Natalie Bohrn is a 2014 graduate of Brandon University’s School of Music. In 2012 Natalie was included among the Women of Distinction at Brandon University, selected by her teachers for her outstanding contribution as a musician to the school and to the province of Manitoba. Before obtaining her degree in 2014, Natalie Bohrn toured professionally across Canada, including points as disparate as the Gulf Islands in British Columbia, Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories and St. John’s, Newfoundland. Supporting Canadian post-folk band Fish & Bird, she has played in California, Boston and New York. Graduating from Brandon University “With Great Distinction” in May, 2014 and moving to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Natalie now fronts her own project, records as a session bassist, and plays electric and upright bass for a host of Winnipeg-based bands, including internationally touring folk-blues outfit, The Crooked Brothers.

Responsible Friend is an album about the ways in which we show up for one another. What does it mean to be a responsible friend — to be there for someone you love without trying to save them?

“The first lesson I learned about caregiving,” says songwriter Elizabeth Ziman, “is that I need to put on my own oxygen mask before I can help anyone else. The next lesson (and the one you won’t find in an airline seat-back) was that no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t take away anyone’s pain. I wasn’t there to fix anyone. I just had to accept them on their own terms.”

That philosophy runs throughout the LP, with songs about a family member’s passing, a friend living with long COVID, and the shared burden of a society steeped in conflict and injustice. “I realized that everyone I knew, including myself, was being asked to process an enormous amount of grief at an alarming pace,” she says. “Writing these songs became my way to surrender to those experiences and slow down enough to be fully present for the people in my life.”

The title track describes a flirtation between two friends who should probably know better. The song lives in a moment of restraint — trying not to let an impulsive decision unravel a long, meaningful friendship. It was a song Elizabeth didn’t necessarily want to write or share, yet somehow it became central to the album. “I also realized after writing the song that the title “responsible friend” was an unconscious theme running throughout
the album. Being responsible to others, to myself, and to the world at large”.

“I Love You Still” was written after Elizabeth spent time in and out of the hospital with a loved one. “It took me a while to realize that the best gift I could give was to accept them exactly as they were, pain and all.” The song captures the practice of letting go of control.

“Learning to Drive” uses Elizabeth’s New York City upbringing (i.e., that she still doesn’t know how to drive) as a metaphor for an adulthood that keeps restarting. It’s about growing up over and over, making the same mistakes, setting boundaries too late, and learning skills you feel you should already have. There’s humor here, but also gentleness: an acknowledgment that progress isn’t linear, and that trusting yourself is something you have to relearn with every turn (and turn signal).

With “50/50,” Elizabeth grapples with the cosmic unfairness of the world. It moves rapidly through contradictions: someone getting high while someone else gets sober; someone winning the lottery while someone else is evicted; someone goes to college while someone else is sent to war. She says, “It took me three years to write the lyrics because there was so much happening in real time that I wanted to include.”

“Bored of Myself,” originally written for Elizabeth’s pandemic-era record Sincerely, E, explores loneliness and the isolation of being an artist. Creation often happens alone, and when you spend too much time talking only to yourself, inspiration can fade. The song reflects on the challenge of embracing the mundane using RAM-era McCartney as a sonic keystone, or millstone, depending on which Beatles you roll with.

“Lost Time” was written for a close friend living with long COVID. After a sleepless night, Elizabeth’s friend said, “It feels like I’ve lived a lifetime in the blink of an eye.” That moment became the heart of the song. “I wanted to capture the mystery and frustration of living with a chronic illness,” she says. “I struggled with an autoimmune disorder in my 20’s, and I remember that feeling of hopelessness. This song is an homage to my friend Emily’s endurance — and to anyone living with chronic illness.”

“Cellophane” is a quiet elegy for things we hold precious and for what happens when they disappear. Dedicated to animals losing their homes in the wild, the song widens the album’s emotional scope beyond the personal. It’s about environmental loss, fragility, and responsibility, and about showing up for lives we may never know directly.

“90 Years Young” is a love song to Elizabeth’s great-aunt Arline, who passed away at 95. “She was the family matriarch. Strong, brilliant, funny,” Elizabeth says. “She kept us together. I hope she appreciates this song.”

Some of the songs on Responsible Friend are joyful dedications; others feel more like letters Elizabeth wasn’t sure she wanted to send. Taken together, it’s a record about slowing down in a world that keeps accelerating. It’s a commitment to friends, family, and self, at a time when everyone seems to be carrying more than they can reasonably hold.

Elizabeth Ziman is the singer, songwriter, and creative force behind Elizabeth and The Catapult. Known for her piano-driven compositions, sharp emotional insight, and disarming honesty, she has built a career on songs that balance wit and vulnerability with striking precision. With Responsible Friend, she delivers a record that feels both intimate and expansive, an unflinching reflection on care, grief, and the stuff it takes to keep showing up.

OLD SALT UNION is no road show but they are a band born, grown and cultivated on the road. The band has made a habit of playing 200+ shows a year since forming in 2012 from club dates and theatres to festivals and special events like Bluegrass Underground, Music City Roots, John Hartford Memorial Festival, ROMP, Stagecoach, Freshgrass, and Yonder Mountain String Band’s Harvest Festival. In the process, they have shared the stage with the best in bluegrass and string band music like Del McCoury, Sam Bush, Leftover Salmon, Greensky Bluegrass, Travelin’ McCourys, Jeff Austin Band, and Ricky Skaggs. Inclusion on key Spotify playlists for their single “Madam Plum” has further fueled the band’s rapid trajectory. A pivotal moment emerged when the band won the 2015 Freshgrass band contest and was introduced to Compass Records co-founder, banjo virtuoso and GRAMMY winning composer, Alison Brown, who went on to produce several tracks for the band and eventually sign them to the label in 2017. With a songwriting style and magnetic stage personas that derive as much from the Great American Songbook as from Americana, their self-titled Compass debut represents a true step forward for a band with seemingly limitless possibilities.

“Old Salt Union has the groove and the chops of a great string band, balanced with infectious rock and roll energy. Their music occupies that sweet space between Old Crow folk and Yonder Mountain jam — not a bad place to be for a band about to break.” — No Depression

With her new album, The Waylon Sessions, the prolific and wide-ranging Shannon McNally set out to revisit the songs and spirit of Waylon Jennings, a legend with whom she’s always had an ongoing fascination. “I have always loved his defiantly existential but immediately accessible common man’s music and how it boogies,” says McNally. But her collection of tunes ended up being not so much a tribute as it is a recontextualization; a nuanced, feminine rendering of a catalog long considered a bastion of hetero-masculinity.

That’s not to say McNally has a softer, gentler take on Jennings’ songs—in fact, just the opposite. Over and over again, she manages to locate a smoldering intensity, a searing hurt buried deep within the music’s deceptively simple poetry, and she hones in on it with surgical precision on this new album, which features special guests like Jessi Colter, Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, and Lukas Nelson. “The world has changed a lot since these songs were first recorded,” says McNally. “I have never heard a woman sing any of them, but these tunes are poignant and relevant to me and to women in general right now. As a songwriter, bringing a song to its full potential so that a larger or different audience can connect is all I’ve ever cared about.”

When Blue Rose’s founder, Joe Poletto, asked McNally the question every artist wishes they could hear when it comes to making a record, “What would you do if you could do anything?” McNally didn’t even need to think before she answered. “An Album of Waylon.” “What Waylon Jennings brought to country music is what country music needs right now, and that unapologetic and vulnerable sense of self are what women are tapping into artistically right now as the industry evolves,” says McNally. “Because of the nature of this business, I’ve spent most of my life moving through a man’s world. I love men and I accept them for the complex critters they are, but when #MeToo started unfolding, I was hearing all these powerful stories and remembering all my own experiences, and I realized just how much of myself I’d been suppressing to get by. The system and the ways I’d learned to survive in it were cracking wide open, and suddenly I felt this freedom I’d never felt before.”

McNally knew that assembling the right band would be essential to capturing Jennings’ mix of laid back charm and swaggering bravado, so she called AMA-winning guitarist Kenny Vaughan (Marty Stuart, Lucinda Williams) to help her assemble a team that included drummer Derek Mixon (Chris Stapleton), pedal steel legend and longtime Jennings bandmate Fred Newell, Texas keyboard mainstay Bukka Allen (Robert Earl Keen, Jerry Jeff Walker), and bassist Chris Scruggs (Marty Stuart, Charlie Louvin). Working live and raw, they tracked sixteen songs in just five days, relying on instinct and intuition to guide their decisions at every turn. As brilliant as the band’s performances are, it’s McNally that breathes new life into the music here, tackling the tunes with an honesty and a maturity that transcends genre and gender. She doesn’t swap pronouns or couch her delivery with a wink; she simply plays it straight, singing her truth as a divorced single mother in her 40’s in all its beauty, pain, and power.

“My goal wasn’t to force anything onto the music that wasn’t there already,” explains McNally. “There’s a feminine perspective hidden somewhere inside each of these songs. My job was to find a way to tap into that and draw it out.” The result is that rare covers record that furthers our understanding of the originals; an album of classics that challenges our perceptions and assumptions about just what made them classics in the first place.

Born and raised on Long Island, McNally has, at various points, called New Orleans, Nashville, and Holly Springs, Mississippi, home, but it was in Los Angeles that she first came to national attention in the early 2000s with her Capitol Records debut, ‘Jukebox Sparrows.’ Recorded with a Murderer’s Row of studio legends including Greg Leisz, Benmont Tench, and Jim Keltner, the collection garnered high profile spotlights everywhere from NPR to Rolling Stone, earned McNally slots on Letterman, Leno, and Conan, and led to dates with Stevie Nicks, Robert Randolph, and John Mellencamp among others. She followed it up in 2005 with ‘Geronimo,’ a critically acclaimed sophomore effort that prompted the New York Times to call her “irresistible” and the Washington Post to hail her as “a fine lyricist who often calls to mind Lucinda Williams.”

A restless creative spirit with a magnetic personality, McNally would go on to release a wide range of similarly lauded albums, EPs, and collaborations over the next 15 years, performing on stage and in the studio with the likes of Willie Nelson, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, Levon Helm, Charlie Sexton, Derek Trucks, Terry Allen, and many more along the way. In 2018, she partnered with Joe Poletto at Blue Rose to develop her new album, The Waylon Sessions—a collection of songs from Waylon Jennings and his outlaw cohorts. The album will be released on Compass Records on May 28, 2021.

Coming off of an incredible GRAMMY win for 2015’s SHINE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE (Best Roots Gospel album), Nashville rocker Mike Farris keeps it earthy and personal on SILVER & STONE, out September 7 on Compass Records. The title refers to his wife, Julie’s wedding ring, and the album is a celebration of their 23 years of marriage and her steadfastness in sticking by him through his years struggling with addiction and alcoholism. Now sober for 7 years, Farris has the energy and conviction of a man saved, a stack of anecdotes and life experiences that would make most people’s heads spin, and a soulful vocal delivery reminiscent of Sam Cooke or Otis Redding. SILVER & STONE isn’t a “gospel” album by any means, but Farris still takes us to church on these 12 engaging tracks, including a cover of Bill Withers’ “Hope She’ll be Happier.”

Produced at Compass Sound Studio (AKA “Hillbilly Central” – the birthplace of Outlaw Country) in Nashville by Compass Records co-founder, Garry West, SILVER & STONE finds Farris imbuing his songs with a vibey, lighthearted feel, returning to his roots as a rocker and soul singer. The album weaves through the traditions of American music the way that Tennessee born and bred Farris has done expertly throughout his 25-year career, starting with his major label band, Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies.

Sonically, SILVER & STONE’s warm organic sound and stellar playing recalls the cream of the Stax Records’ catalog. The album opener and Farris original, “Tennessee Girl,” seguing into “Are You Lonely For Me Baby?” and “Can I Get a Witness,” are loose and groove-driven, hitting all the right notes of soul,  and  blues with an effortlessness that shows what a natural Farris is for this sound.

The studio band includes famed “Memphis Boy” Gene Chrisman (Dusty Springfield, Elvis Presley, Dan Auerbach) sharing drum duties with Derrek Phillips (Robben Ford, Hank Williams Jr.), keyboardists Reese Wynans (Joe Bonamassa, Double Trouble) and long-time Farris collaborator Paul Brown (Waterboys, Ann Peebles), guitarists Doug Lancio (Patty Griffin, John Hiatt), Rob McNelly (Delbert McClinton) and George Marinelli (Bonnie Raitt) with Steve Mackey (Wallflowers, Delbert McClinton) and producer West splitting bass duties. Farris is quick to credit the crew in the band for putting their modern spin on classic grooves and progressions.  The band was given just enough structure so they could add their own flavor. Among the album’s many standout moments is Joe Bonamassa‘s searing solo on “Movin’ Me” (Bonamassa became a fan and friend while opening for Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies in the 90’s).

Melding the spiritual and the earthly, Farris says the album is about “reaching something better without actually trying.” This sentiment drives the Farris-penned composition, “Golden Wings”, written for his son, Christian, at “a pivotal point in his life, with so many options in front of him. That feeling of ‘Where am I supposed to be?’”

Farris told Rolling Stone Country. “It’s one of those songs that just flowed out after I did an exercise where you write a letter to your younger self. It has a dual message— something to say to a young person who is looking for answers, but also a reminder to myself to be free and open to the possibilities of life.”

Another Farris composition, “When Mavis Sings,” hits equally close to his heart. Over his years as a performer, he’s had the privilege of becoming close to legendary singer and gospel icon Mavis Staples.  He says, “Mavis is everything you want your heroes to be.” Julie Farris elaborates, “She calls him ‘Mikey’.”  The song is actually a history lesson on Mavis’ life, as it’s completely comprised of literal tidbits of her life.

“I wanted to explore that upbringing, being in that neighborhood with all of these luminaries and absorbing that music,” he says. “It was exciting to watch all the pieces come together and fit lyrically.”

The album closes with “I’ll Come Running Back To You,” an acknowledgment of the surrender intrinsic in love by accepting the kind of love that conquers shame and self-doubt.  Where the narrator of this song is losing his identity in service of unrequited love, for Farris, it’s quite the opposite—it’s relinquishing a vision of identity that needs to be served by attention or self-medication and instead takes root and grows through love.

“It’s the most essential, yet most difficult, part of faith,” Farris says.  “Remembering to open up and allow the universe to have its way with you and your gifts. Be open and free to the possibilities of life.”

Jim Oblon is one of those rare talents—a jaw-dropping guitarist, soulful singer and compelling writer. On Sunset, to be released on March 25, Oblon’s virtuosic Telecaster-driven blues chops and vocals shine on a set of originals, vintage rock & roll, and country blues, all delivered in a neoclassic organ trio setting comprised of legendary session drummer Jim Keltner and renowned GRAMMY-winning organist/pianist Larry Goldings.

Oblon has gained national attention as guitarist, drummer, and vocalist in Paul Simon’s band as well as for his contributions on bass, drums and guitar to Simon’s latest album So Beautiful or So What. Always a believer in the bigger musical picture, he aims to expound upon the legacy of his forbearers without ever becoming an impersonator himself. “Today there’s a ‘blues scene’ with Brylcreem and bowling shirts, all the gear, but it doesn’t have the essence of music,” Oblon explains. “I wanted to honor the people who came before me. Maybe I can add a few of my own things, but I want to not lose what was.”

Sunset is a showcase for all three musicians. The album was recorded with the trio playing together in one room and the energy and intensity of this created by this performance-style recording approach yields tracks that literally seem to pop off the disc. A blues-funk reworking of Little Richard’s “Lucille” gives each of the players a chance to stretch out and strut their inventiveness, musical depth and mastery, as well as their ability to put a fresh spin on an old classic. Oblon’s soul shines on his two originals, the languid “Desert Sun” and the almost time-suspending instrumental title track, “Sunset.”  And his plaintive telecaster, backed by Keltner’s bombastic rhythm bed, lends a particularly vibey feel to Lead Belly’s “When I Was a Cowboy 1911.”

Goldings, featured on piano on “Desert Sun” and “Railroad Bum,” uses the Fats Domino classic “Blueberry Hill” to illustrate why he is considered one of the best Hammond B3 players alive; he delivers a solo that makes you think he’s been waiting his whole life to play this tune. And rock/session legend Jim Keltner’s performances stand out as almost a “Jim Keltner how-to”: propulsive yet laid-back, rocking yet swinging, and rhythmically percussive enough to make you swear there is more than one of him playing.

In 2011, Oblon released a Jim Morrison-esque recording of the traditional song “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” which was featured in last season’s finale of HBO’s hugely popular vampire drama True Blood. He now lives in Nashville where he’s a fast rising guitarist on the session scene.  His Tuesday night residency at fooBAR in East Nashville is becoming the buzz event of the week among musicians and those in the know.

Over the past three decades, A.J. Croce has established his reputation as a piano player and serious vocal stylist who pulls from a host of musical traditions and anti-heroes — part New Orleans, part juke joint, part soul. While his last album, JUST LIKE MEDICINE, paired him with soul legend Dan Penn and an all-star cast of players, his new album was born of memories — of favorite artists and shows, but mostly, of late-night gatherings with groups of friends, many of them fellow musicians, with Croce at the piano taking requests. Croce revisits these musical evenings on BY REQUEST, 12 personally curated covers that traverse decades and genres, propelled by his spirited, loose-and-easy piano mastery and emotive vocals.

It’s a tribute to Croce the music fan as well as Croce the musician that both the variety and execution is inspired, aided by a full band and horns.

BY REQUEST is the first album Croce has released since losing his wife of 24 years, Marlo Croce, after a sudden heart ailment. It’s also the first album by Croce to feature his full touring band: Gary Mallaber on drums (Van Morrison, Steve Miller band), GRAMMY®-winning bassist David Barard (Allen Toussaint, Dr. John), and up-and-coming guitarist Garrett Stoner.

From sharing an obscure song by Motown artist Shorty Long, “Ain’t No Justice,” to his funky, dead-on version of Billy Preston’s “Nothing from Nothing,” Croce keeps the virtual party hopping. While he delivers faithful recreations of such nuggets as The Five Stairsteps’ “Ooh Child” and Allen Toussaint’s “Brickyard Blues,” he puts his own spin on piano-driven arrangements of songs by Neil Young, The Beach Boys, Sam Cooke, The Faces and more. Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” is reinterpreted as a gospel song, and The Beach Boys’ “Sail On Sailor” becomes a trippy, rollicking ride. “I reimagined the arrangement, wondering how Willie Dixon would have recorded it if he were on psychedelics,” Croce explains.

Guitar legend (and Croce’s East Nashville neighbor) Robben Ford guests on a version of folk/blues greats Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee’s “Better Day” with stellar results. “I’ve loved Sonny and Brownie since I first heard them. This song was the first tune I learned on guitar. I added quite a few chords in my arrangement, but what’s new,” he quips.

Although he lost his famous father, music legend Jim Croce, when he was just two years old, he pays tribute by covering Randy Newman’s “Have You Seen My Baby” since the first show he attended was a bill featuring his dad and Newman. “I love so much of his music, and while this is by no means my favorite of his, it’s been a request at soirées. I sort of treated it as if Little Richard sat in with The Flaming Groovies and played it like I was 15, with reckless abandon.”

“BY REQUEST is my way of inviting you over for a private gathering at my place,” Croce says of the collection. “We listen to great music, laugh, make great food and after a few drinks and maybe a few more we end up in my music room and I start taking requests of every genre and era. The music is always fun and completely diverse. We’ll play and sing all kinds of music. Some of my friends are professional musicians, some do it for fun and many friends are just serious music fans. So you’ll fit right in.

“There’s no way that I could record the thousands of songs I’ve performed at home over the years, nevertheless every song on this album has been requested by close friends who have hung out at my place many times for many years.

About A.J. Croce

Over his ten studio albums, it’s clear that A.J. Croce holds an abiding love for all types of musical genres: Blues, Soul, Pop, Jazz, and Rock n’ Roll. A virtuosic piano player, Croce toured with B.B. King and Ray Charles before reaching the age of 21, and, over his career, he has performed with a wide range of musicians, from Willie Nelson to the Neville Brothers; Béla Fleck to Ry Cooder. A.J. has also co-written songs with such formidable tunesmiths as Leon Russell, Dan Penn, Robert Earl Keen and multi-Grammy winner Gary Nicholson. His albums have all charted, and done so on an impressive array of charts: Top 40, Blues, Americana, Jazz, Independent, College, and Radio 1, to name a few. The Nashville-based singer/songwriter also has landed 18 singles on variety of Top 20 charts.

The late, great New Orleans piano player and Croce hero, Allen Toussaint, summed him up best: “In such a crowded music universe it is a pleasure to witness triple uniqueness: pianist, songwriter, singer and at such a level, and who does he sound like? The answer is himself … A.J. Croce.”

A.J.’s last two albums epitomize these qualities: 2014’s Twelve Tales found him working with six celebrated producers — “Cowboy” Jack Clement (Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley), Mitchell Froom (Los Lobos, Crowded House), Tony Berg (Fiona Apple, Bob Dylan), Kevin Killen (Elvis Costello, Peter Gabriel), Greg Cohen (Tom Waits, John Zorn), and Toussaint (Dr. John, Lee Dorsey) — who each chose two songs (a single’s “A” and “b” sides). The resulting collection was recorded in five cities with six different bands. American Songwriter wrote: “Regardless of the genre, Croce slides into these songs with an easy charm.”

In 2017, A.J. enlisted legendary Muscle Shoals producer/songwriter Dan Penn and an all-star backing crew that included Steve Cropper, Vince Gill, David Hood, Colin Linden, Bryan Owings, The Muscle Shoals Horns, and The McCrary Sisters for his album Just Like Medicine, which ABC News praised as sounding “like it was crafted with the influence of greats like Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello in mind.”

A.J.’s deep love for music is understandable considering that his mother, Ingrid, was a singer/songwriter as was his father, the late Jim Croce. He never knew his father, who died in a tragic plane crash just before his second birthday. A.J., who started playing piano as a young age, purposely avoided his father’s music in order to establish his own identity as a musician. A.J.’s relationship with his father’s music began changing around a dozen years ago, when he began digitalized his father’s tapes. One old cassette contained a bar performance of Jim Croce playing blues tunes that had influenced him. These were deep-cuts by folks like Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Blake, Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry, and A.J. was amazed since these songs were the ones that he had been playing since he was 12.

A.J. Croce’s family musical legacy is just part of his very unique life story. Born outside of Philadelphia, A.J. moved with his mother and father to San Diego when he was 18 months old. Around the age of four, he went blind due to horrific physical abuse from his mother’s then-boyfriend. A.J. was hospitalized for half a year and was totally blind in both eyes for six years. It was during this time that he started playing piano, inspired by blind pianists like Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. Croce, who regained sight in his left eye when he was ten, went on to spend his early teen years performing including at his mother’s establishment, Croce’s Jazz Bar. In 2018 he lost his wife of 24 years, Marlo Croce to a rare heart virus.