Here are some of the top new releases for the week of 08/05/2020.
All of this week’s new tracks are also on our New Release Round-up 2020 playlist on Spotify, along with every other song we’ve included in this feature during the year so far. If you’re a Spotify user, give it a follow so you can keep up to date!
Tim McGraw – I Called Mama
Released to coincide with Mother’s Day in the US, I Called Mama is a slice of wholesome nostalgia both in the arrangement and the lyrics. Picked guitar and banjo, gently wailing pedal steel, country church organ chords all set the scene for a track that speaks of the kind of comfort and understanding in troubled times that you only find at home. It wasn’t written for now, but it will push a lot of emotional buttons for people who are feeling the strain of the current times.
Adam Hambrick – Between Me And The End Of The World
Adam’s wife is a health care worker who works on processing Covid-19 test kits, so the crisis is very real in the Hambrick household. This track is really a tribute to her, but it’s also a “thank you” to front line workers everywhere. Although as he says at the opening of the song, “Thank you’s don’t cut it | I mean, what do you get | For the one who sees a crowd running out | And then decides to run in?”.
Joshua Ray Walker – True Love
Texan Joshua Ray Walker has announced a new album to drop in July, and True Love is the first track to come from it. An uptempo song that sounds happy, but dig into the lyrics and it’s not so much.
Ray Wylie Hubbard – Outlaw Blood (w/ Ashley McBryde)
The veteran singer songwriter’s first album for Big Machine, Co-Starring, had some worrying that he’d be somehow neutered by Nashville, but they needn’t have worried. On this track he has Ashley McBryde in the mix, and she even gets a namecheck in the lyric. There’s maybe a line or two that other writers might not get away with so easily – shoehorning “Steve Cropper” and “Dennis Hopper” into a couplet, for example – but hey, why not? Rather than think too deeply, it’s maybe best to just let the dirty, swampy, bluesy whole of the song wash over you.
Eric Paslay – Heartbeat Higher (w/ Sarah Buxton)
A new track from hit writer and performer Eric Paslay, with hints of more new music to come over the summer. This song has actually been around for a while, there are video’s online you can find with Eric performing this live with Cam while on tour together a few years back, but he’s finally recorded it with Sarah Buxton (who also co-wrote the track with Eric and Zach Crowell).
Randy Rogers & Wade Bowen – Ode To Ben Dorcy (Lovey’s Song) (w/ Waylon Jennings & Shooter Jennings)
Ben Dorcy had the nickname of “the world’s oldest roadie”, and worked with all the greats in American music – Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and many more. Waylon wrote this song in tribute to Ben, but it was never recorded or even published. Randy & Ben, with the permission of Waylon’s family, have used an old demo tape to bring Waylon into the track, and Shooter adds his own vocals too. It’s the sixth track from Randy and Wade’s new album Hold My Beer Vol 2, out now.