Karen & The Sorrows: "Do It For Myself"

Courtesy: Baby Robot Media

Karen & the Sorrows are back with a new full-length album, The Narrow Place (due August 25th). Like any roots band, The Sorrows sing about heartbreak and loss - they just take the back roads less traveled to get there. 

The Sorrows’ sound centers around singer-songwriter Karen Pittelman’s high, lilting vocals and Elana Redfield’s lonesome pedal steel guitar mixed with the dark twang and steady beat of the 1970s country-rock the band grew up on. Pittelman, Redfield, and drummer Tami Johnson formed the Brooklyn-based band in 2011. In 2012 they released the EP Ocean Born Mary about a ghost story from Redfield’s New Hampshire hometown. In 2014, they put out their first full-length record, The Names of Things, which was voted one of the Freeform American Roots Chart’s best debut albums of the year. A constant fixture in New York’s clubs and bars, the Sorrows have continued to build a strong local following as well as touring throughout the east coast from New England to New Orleans.

The Sorrows are also at the center of a growing queer country scene, creating a community for people who love country music even if country music doesn’t always love them back. For the last six years, they’ve run Brooklyn’s Gay Ole Opry Festival and the Queer Country Quarterly. “Now more than ever, we are grateful to be in community with so many amazing musicians,” Pittelman says. “Country music can tell compelling stories about family, love, heartbreak, and strength. Those stories should include all of our families, all of our love, and especially all of our heartbreak and our strength.”

Listen to "Do It For Myself," a stripped-down, stirring ballad about lost love that is led by Pittelman's wistful vocals, swells of twangy pedal steel, and hushed percussion below.

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