Offaly music columnist previews upcoming releases

Chris Stapleton’s highly anticipated new album,  Higher, will be released November 10 on Mercury Nashville (pre-order/pre-save). In advance of the release, the album’s first single,  White Horse, written by Stapleton and Dan Wilson, was released on July 21st.

Produced by Dave Cobb, Morgane Stapleton, and Stapleton, Higher was recorded at Nashville’s RCA Studio A. Across its 14 songs, Stapleton showcases his supernatural voice and musical versatility with songs that span genres and defy easy categorization. Alongside Stapleton (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, slide electric guitar), the album features Cobb (acoustic guitar, eclectic guitar), J.T. Cure (bass), Paul Franklin (pedal steel), Derek Mixon (drums), Morgane (background vocals, synthesizer, tambourine), and Lee Pardini (organ, piano).

Known for his electric live performances, the 8-time Grammy, 15-time CMA, and 15-time ACM Award-winner is currently in the midst of his extensive  All-American Road Show  tour and joins George Strait for select stadium shows this summer.

One of the country’s most respected and beloved musicians, in the past year Stapleton was named Entertainer of the Year at the 58th ACM Awards — resulting in a prestigious ACM Triple Crown Award — and Male Vocalist of the Year at the 2022 CMA Awards — his sixth time earning the award, setting the record for most wins ever in the category.

Additionally, in February, he performed the National Anthem at Super Bowl LVII and has collaborated in recent years with Adele, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Justin Timberlake, P!nk, Sheryl Crow, Santana, and many more.

The new album follows 2020’s acclaimed  Starting Over, which went on to win three awards at the 67th Annual GRAMMYs: Best Country Album, Best Country Solo Performance (You Should Probably Leave) and Best Country Song (Cold) in addition to earning Album of the Year honors at both the CMA and ACM Awards. Called  “a sure-footed masterpiece”  by the Associated Press, the album landed on  Best of 2020  lists at NPR Music, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Esquire, Vulture, The Tennessean, and The New York Times, who declared,  “Chris Stapleton’s roar isn’t designed to scare you off. It’s regal, an announcement of an alpha figure asserting his primacy…on this, his fourth album, the thrill is back.”

Prior to  Starting Over, Stapleton released a pair of Platinum-certified releases in 2017 —  From A Room: Volume 1  and  From A Room: Volume 2  — as well as his 5-times Platinum breakthrough solo debut album in 2015,  Traveller.

In addition to their work as musicians, the Stapletons are founders of the Outlaw State of Kind charitable fund, which supports a variety of causes that are close to their heart.

~  White Horse, the new single from Chris Stapleton, is out now.

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SNOW PATROL

Snow Patrol  have announced details of a 20th anniversary edition of their classic record  Final Straw, with a previously unreleased demo version of their anthemic hit  Chocolate  out now. The two CDs and digital versions of the album were released on April 7th, with a special double vinyl edition coming on August 4th to mark the record’s original release date 20 years on. The anniversary edition includes 23 additional tracks*, inclusive of a raft of never before heard demos, B-sides, live tracks from the band’s August 2004 show at London’s Somerset House and previously commercially unreleased track Tired.

“I still have days where I don’t believe much of the last 20 years,”  writes Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody in extensive liner notes accompanying the release.  “In the back of my mind, I’m still waiting for the tap on the shoulder and someone saying, ‘you’re not supposed to be here’. In a lot of ways, it’s a gift we were given. We’ve never taken any of what happened after the release of this album for granted.”

Alongside Gary’s recollections, the package also includes writings on  Final Straw  from Jo Whiley and Fiction Records MD Jim Chancellor.

Final Straw  was Snow Patrol’s third album and their major label debut. Written and recorded during a make-or-break period for the quartet, it set them on the path to becoming one of the biggest guitar groups of the 21st century. Their 2006 single  Chasing Cars, taken from Final Straw’s follow-up  Eyes Open, is one of the biggest songs of all-time, a five-times platinum hit with streams of one billion on Spotify and three million combined sales.

Final Straw, though, is where everything began to fall in place for Snow Patrol. Propelled by the stirring ballad  Run, which has over 127,000,000 Spotify plays, and urgent, hooky sing-alongs such as  Chocolate  and  Spitting Games, Final Straw  went on to sell over four million copies worldwide, inclusive of 1.8 million sales in the UK going six-times platinum in the process. Nothing would ever be the same for Snow Patrol after its release. Here’s to revisiting the record that changed everything.

~ The previously unreleased demo version of  Chocolate  by Snow Patrol is out now.

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JOSHUA RAY WALKER

Joshua Ray Walker has been called  “country’s most fascinating young songwriter”  by Rolling Stone and  “one of country’s most exciting storytellers”  by Spin. After releasing his first three albums, a trilogy of sorts that No Depression calls  “the country music equivalent of the great American novel,”  Walker decided it was time to just have some fun.

The result is  What Is It Even?, a tribute to some of Walker’s favourite female singers and songwriters, out August 4th 2023 via Soundly Music.

The genres covered and Walker’s interpretations are equal parts familiar and jarring. There’s a country version of Cher’s  Believe, a sort of grunge/country adaptation of Q Lazarus’  Goodbye Horses, a mostly straight version of Sinead O’Connor’s  Nothing Compares To You, a Spaghetti Western-inspired take on Sia’s  Cheap Thrills, and a type of bluegrass adaptation of Beyonce’s  Halo  that builds with vocal momentum like the original. The song choices make the album feel something like an Alice In Wonderland version of your most fun-loving friend’s iPod shuffle dug out of their closet.

Indeed, the album’s version of Lizzo’s  Cuz I Love You  is a vocal showcase that was recorded after all the other songs because Walker worried he might not be able to pull it off. Rather than rapping, Walker quickly sings the verses before channelling Lizzo to belt the chorus, reaching peaks that are likely to astonish live audiences, similar to how the superstar and fellow Texan took the scene in 2019.

“I think ‘Cuz I Love You’ is about as close as you can get to a perfect pop record,”  Walker says.  “She’s probably the number one person I’d like to collaborate with. She’s the whole package.”

The catalyst of  What Is It Even?  was sparked on the patio of the Tulsa, Oklahoma music venue and dive bar Mercury Lounge, a fitting origin story for any country record. But this is far from an ordinary country record. It was on that Tulsa patio, deep into tour, when Walker and drummer Trey Pendergrass were half joking about what their gospel jump blues version of Whitney Houston’s

I Wanna Dance With Somebody  would sound like, wondering  “what if the Blues Brothers covered a Whitney Houston song?”

“I just wanted to make something that was fun,”  Walker says.  “I realized how influential female pop records and artists have been on me as a person, even more than in a creative sense.”

While his audience had grown and he was reaching the sort of success he’d hoped would result from his first three albums, it had been a difficult few years for Walker. His father lost a long battle with lung cancer, and a trusted advisor and musical mentor died unexpectedly. Coming out of COVID-19 lockdown, the country artist was also dealing with the flooding of his home.

Beyond just lost memories, the flood made the house unlivable for months on end, meaning that Walker, who spent 200 days a year touring, would return home only to live in an extended stay hotel, as if he were still on the road. Career success wasn’t an immediate conduit to happiness, as many artists have learned. Walker wanted to get in the studio and have fun and record the sort of songs that are familiar salves to millions of people. The kind of music that can cheer you up.

For someone who has made waves in country music for his vocal range, from energising yodels to astonishing falsettos, Walker admits that what was required from this covers album was the hardest he’s ever pushed himself as a vocalist in the studio. Before this album was ever even an idea, these women – with their ability to create instant ear worms with their voices – helped Walker realise his vocal gifts when he used to sing a Beyonce or Sia song in the kitchen or the shower. He did what all of us do, only, unlike most of us, he discovered he could actually hit the notes.

Last month, Walker embarked on an extensive U.S. headline tour of the West Coast and Southwest. Having opened a pair of dates for Morgan Wade in July, he heads out on his first headline tour of Europe and the UK on August 11th.

~  What is it even?, the new album from Joshua Ray Walker is out everywhere on August4.