(Nashville, Tennessee...Press Release) - October 18, 2017 - In the midst of celebrating its 35th anniversary, Nashville's iconic Bluebird Cafe is kicking off an ambitious Indiegogo campaign to fund Bluebird: The Movie, an in-depth documentary about the influence the tiny 90-seat venue has had on singers, songwriters and popular music in general. The campaign began Tuesday, October 17, 2017 here and will run through November 20.
 
Known for originating the songwriter "In The Round" concept, the careers of numerous artists and songwriters have been launched from the small stage. Budding songwriters view the Bluebird as a "field of dreams" of sorts, traveling from all over the world and waiting in line for hours to audition for the chance to perform one minute of one song on a Monday open mic night.
 
Garth Brooks, Kathy Mattea and Taylor Swift were discovered playing there, and producers, artists and A&R folks heard countless songs performed for the first time that became huge hits for many artists. The club still has the original audition applications filled out by Dierks Bentley, Keith Urban and others.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Oct. 20, 2017) - Singer-songwriter Mike Ryan announces fall tour dates in support of newly released album Blink You’ll Miss It out today (10/20). The tour kicks off in Ryan’s hometown at Cowboy’s Dance Hall in San Antonio, TX tonight and will continue with stops in major cities including Las Vegas, NV, Los Angeles, CA, Oklahoma City, OK and Houston, TX (see full list of tour dates below). Blink You’ll Miss It debuted at No. 6 on iTunes Top Country Albums chart. 

Blink You’ll Miss It has been highlighted by press as a standout collection of songs that shine a light on Ryan’s knack for impressive songwriting, pop sensibility and vocal prowess. Music Row called the new music “Essential listening.” Cowboys and Indianspointed out, “Singles like ‘New Hometown’ and ‘Sad Song’ offer only a small taste of the overall talent displayed on Blink You’ll Miss It” and Lonestar Music Magazine added that the results on the album “...suggest that his career will only take off even more…” Ryan shared some of the inspiration behind his third studio album and his writing process withSan Antonio Magazine ( HERE) and Celeb Secrets ( HERE). The Boot recently premiered the music video for current single “Sad Song” and shared, “Ryan’s intensely powerful, emotive vocals and beautifully simple piano playing give the track an ultimately uplifting and wholly authentic, if not entirely hopeful, feel.” View the “Sad Song” music video HERE.

Blink You’ll Miss It is the follow up to Bad Reputation which yielded three #1 singles on the Texas Music Chart and New Male Vocalist of the Year by Texas Radio. Two of the songs on the album are already making impressions at satellite and terrestrial radio including SiriusXM’s Highway Find “Sad Song” and “New Hometown” which has racked up nearly 5 million stream on Spotify. Fans can purchase Blink You’ll Miss It HERE. ​

2015-2016 began Lloyd Cole’s “retrospective years” in which the UK born, Western Massachusetts-based musician began to revisit his storied career.  It all began in 1984 with the Rattlesnakes album with its stunning pop hit “Perfect Skin.”  The album was released the following year in North America via Geffen. This year has seen the release of a 6 CD box set called Lloyd Cole in New York – Collected Recordings 1988-1996.  The last studio album Standards was released in 2014.
 
In his “own write” (nods to John Lennon) from last year with regards to the start of the looking back process:
 
"Yes, it was me who opened his solo venture (the eponymous 1990 release) with a song called ‘Don’t Look Back’. I know, I know… 
 
However, the release of 2015’s Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Collected Recordings 1983-1989 was received to universal warmth and acclaim, and it sold out far more quickly than UMG anticipated. A second printing is due in March, and a second box is in the works, for September release. It will span 1988 – 1996, my first four solo albums, the lost fifth album, plus rarities and videos.
 
These boxes are a lot of work, much of which can only be done by me. I must revisit and rediscover material. I am necessarily in retrospective mode. I have decided to embrace it. Once the world has seen the Retrospective Show I will resume my work as a contemporary artist."
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Lloyd Cole will play City Winery NYC 155 Varick Street on November 25th
Showtime: 8:00p.m
Tickets: $35-$45
http://www.citywinery.com/newyork/tickets/lloyd-cole-11-25.html

Texas native Emily Herring sings country that is pure and simple, and Gliding, Herring's fourth record, releasing on October 27th, is no exception. Gliding delivers raw emotion from a voice that conveys honky-tonk swagger (“Miller's in Milwaukee"), romantic warmth ("Midnight," “Best Thing”) and down-home truth ("Gettin' By") while showcasing Herring's sharp, honest storytelling. 

The ten-track collection, which mixes originals with well-chosen covers, was produced by the legendary instrumentalist Steve Fishell whose involvement Herring notes was key to the project,

"Truthfully, Steve WAS the project. I had the tremendous opportunity to see him re-record Radney Foster’s Del Rio, TX 1959 for the Revisited album. Because Steve produced the original, and because this was the first Country album I ever bought, this was huge for me. What an opportunity! Steve runs a program, MPI, that is a production class. Students pay to watch some of the best Country musicians you can think of make a record and see the production side of that process. The tuition from the session helps pay for the recording session.

He’s done this for Asleep at the Wheel, Rodney Crowell, Kris Kristofferson.. the list is phenomenal. Steve isn’t just stellar production, he’s a steel player from hell. Steel and dobro are my favourite parts of the signature Country twang and having a producer who embodies the sound you like best is a good move. After that class, I made it my mission to make a record through MPI. When I finished working my last record, Your Mistake, I spent so much time writing and working on demos. I got my three best songs together, and wrote Steve a sincere plea for him to take this project on. Within an hour of writing, he called!

It was amazing… and that’s how I got to be the only unknown artist on the MPI roster. It's not every kid that gets to grow up and have the producer/steel player from the first Country album they ever bought work their record. I am forever grateful."

Today, TDC is honored to premiere the stellar Gliding for you to stream in full below.

While the songs on Gliding offer everything from aching, tender moments ("Yellow Mailbox," "Right Behind Her") to rollicking classics ("Semi Truck"), Herring chose to title the album after the album's emotional opener, "Gliding." She says, 

"Despite the fact that the title track hinges upon a feeling of loss, I think that overall people think of gliding in a more optimistic way. I wanted to capitalize on that emotion. Good or bad, the feeling of gliding has a certain slowness, and stillness to it. You don’t have to be careening off a cliff.. you could be paragliding! So, there’s some deceitful depression when you listen to the song...But you make it over to Best Thing I’ve Seen Yet, and perk yourself up a little."

Genuine, distinctive, and affecting. Gliding soars.

Pre-order Gliding HERE
For more information visit her official website
Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube

Dan Auerbach, announces a 7” Easy Eye Sound sampler, Good Sound Comes Back Around Vol. 1, which will be released on Friday, November 24th, as part of Record Store Day’s Black Friday initiative. The new 7” is a preview of upcoming releases on Auerbach’s label and features “Cellophane Angel,” an exclusive and unreleased track Auerbach recorded with the Preservation Hall Band, on Side A, and Robert Finley's "Medicine Woman"— the first single on Goin’ Platinum! due December 8th— and Sonny Smith's "Pictures of You" on Side B. Sonny Smith will be releasing a full-length album on Auerbach’s label soon. The 7” will be available at participating record stores, and more information can be found here.
 
Auerbach’s new solo album, Waiting On A Song, which NPR Music calls “a batch of sparkling pop songs that's sweet, breezy, and primed for summer,” is out now on Easy Eye Sound, and you can listen to it here. The album is Auerbach’s follow-up to 2009’s Keep It Hid and is his love letter to Nashville. As such, he recruited some of Na­shville’s most respected players to write and record his latest, including John Prine, Duane Eddy, Jerry Douglas, Russ Pahl, Pat McLaughlin as well as Bobby Wood and Gene Chrisman of the Memphis Boys. Auerbach said about working with his musical heroes: “Living in Nashville has definitely changed the way I think about music and the way that I record it. I didn’t have all of these resources before. I am working with some of the greatest musicians that ever lived.”

Auerbach, along with Robert Finley, will appear on “A Prairie Home Companion” with host Chris Thile, on October 28th. With nearly 3.2 million fans from around the world tuning in to enjoy the show each week, “A Prairie Home Companion” is the only live music and variety show aired nationwide today.

​Richmond, VA-based Rob Williams will release his new album, An Hour Before Daylight on October 27th. Full of turns and twists through a warm soundscape of folk, roots rock, and Americana twang, Williams songs address issues from loneliness and love to the plight of miners over a century ago. Williams, who has a doctoral in educational leadership, works to make a difference in song, to "seek truth in the marriage of lyric and melody."

Today, TDC is extremely proud to premiere one of the album's tracks, the instantly memorable "Don't Want To Love You." Williams relates the story behind the sadly optimistic tune,
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“I had the idea of building a story around a wedding dress, and having the dress re-appear in verses throughout the song.  I got so fixed on that structure that I couldn’t actually make progress on the song.  By the time I finally abandoned that approach, I had a couple of verses and saw a storyline evolving.  I just followed the path of the story from there.  To me, this song carries a certain degree of hopefulness about it.  Despite the appearance that things didn’t go the way the narrator wanted with the girl, he has emerged as the stronger of the two and moved on.”  Further adding, “There’s hopefulness in this song.  It may not sound like it initially, but that’s the underlying message.”

The song, a light on its feet, jaunty shuffler led by Williams warm, gentle vocals, has that inherent hopefulness he speaks of even as it focuses on an ex who is causing quite a bit of emotional distress for the narrator. Williams says he enjoys that particular dichotomy noting,

“I like contrast.  I like it visually and lyrically.  On the surface, this song is a little sad.  The narrator pines for a girl who marries someone else.  He’s kicking himself and wondering what might have been.  But really, it’s a song about courage and confidence.  In the end, when she wants him back, he’s strong enough to say no.  Musically, the song is fairly light and bouncy.  The chord arrangement is familiar, but the vocal delivery is choppy at times and maybe even a little awkward.  I like that contrast as well.  It feels natural to me.”

With his previous records Williams didn’t share his new songs until right before each session, but with this one, he wanted a little more control, so he rehearsed in advance, and then went to Great North Sound Society, a studio in an old house in the foothills of southern Maine. For eight days, amidst trees and open spaces, they got inside each song, found its heart and brought it to life. Williams says of recording the track,

“We went into the studio with the attitude that “less is more.”  I didn’t want to over-do anything on this album, either performance-wise or production-wise.  I think we accomplished that overall, and particularly with this song.  There are places where more instruments might have accentuated verses or choruses, or where a guitar or piano solo might have fit in, but we stuck to the plan and let the songs speak for themselves without cluttering them up.”

In addition to “Don’t Want To Love You,” the stories on An Hour Before Daylight lead listeners to places that are autobiographical (“The Old North State”), hopeful (“Icarus Dreamt”), and lonesome (“Broken”), while some travel to the past (“Butte, Montana, 1885,” “Lucy, You’re Lovely”). Williams says his songwriting process, “has traditionally been music first, but recently I’ve been forcing myself to try it the other way around.  When I first started out, I played guitar in a band but didn’t sing.  I wasn’t writing words, so chords and music were my focus.  As I’ve adapted to the singer/songwriter role, lyrics have naturally become more important and I’m finding that focusing on them independent of the music has been beneficial for my overall writing process.”

Rob Williams An Hour Before Daylight releases October 27th. Pre-order the album HERE.
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For more information visit his official website
Find him on Twitter and Instagram