AJ Hobbs blends intimately personal storytelling with soulful country melodies on his new single, "Daddy Loved The Lord."
The first tune from his upcoming full-length, Too Much Is Never Enough , "Daddy Loved The Lord" mines a classic country sound supported by a Bakersfield "backbone" and elevated by a fabulously jaunty piano, twangy guitar, and shuffling percussion. The story song tells the tale of Hobbs' father, a good man whose struggles with booze and cocaine prohibited him from putting family first - something that continued even after he found God, "But a dip in the water don't clean the slate with a broke up family." Hobbs brings an intense honesty to the song that while rollicking, portrays a not so ideal childhood and an underlying hurt heart that is further amplified by the gospel stylings of Kitten Kurio's dynamic background vocals. Hobbs had this to say about the song, “My wife has always told me to write my own story and for years I thought about how I could tell the story of my dad, the fall down drunk, who got religion after years of chaos, drinking, and abuse in our house. So I did just that with this song. I wanted to talk about themes that were personal to me; like going to church on Saturdays ‘cause daddy was a Seventh-Day Adventist; or being stuck in a sleepy desert town with no friends because we weren't allowed to play with kids that didn’t go to our church which meant many afternoons it was just me and my little brother at the tracks waiting for trains to come by and smash our pennies for fun. But I wanted to mix in some universal ideas too and let this be an anthem for anyone that got forced praying to a god they didn’t really understand or being a part of a broken family turned on its head by the church. “The hook for this song had been rumbling around my head for a couple years before I was finally able to sit down and finish it. To me, this was always going to have a Bakersfield country vibe, but to be completely honest, I was reading a lot of Kendrick Lamar lyrics when I was finally inspired to finish out the tune. To me he’s one of the great poets of this generation and has a cool perspective when it comes to coming of age and down-home themes. “I took the song to my producer Ted Russell Kamp and we worked on the arrangement a bit and then took the band down to Mark Rains’ Station House Studio to record it. I got Jim Doyle to play drums on it cause he really gets that classic country sound, Ted on bass and Jeremy Long from Sam Outlaw’s band on guitar. Jeremy asked if he could lay down some piano and that is when the song started to take on a whole different feel. It still had the Bakersfield backbone in the rhythm section but it turned into a country gospel and blues thing right away. Once I heard that, I got Kitten Kuroi from Englebert Humperdinck’s band to come in and lay down the background vocals. I love what this song turned into and I hope you do too." "Saturday morning waking with the dawn, turn the tv off and put your church clothes on Jim and Tammy Faye clogging up the stereo Mom and Dad they don't fight no more He ain't swerving home from the liquor store But he talks about it like it was years ago" Stream (and share) "Daddy Loved The Lord" below. RIYL: Sturgill Simpson, Cody Jinks, Jason Eady
2 Comments
Kathy Conti
11/18/2016 04:51:02 am
Loved this
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Kim white
11/27/2016 08:46:49 pm
Love it !!! Great music !
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