Joshua Hedley – Neon Blue [LP]

Description

Joshua Hedley is a singing professor of country & western, he declares on his raucous and witty new album, Neon Blue. It might sound like a punchline, but its not. An ace fiddle player, a sharp guitarist, and a singer with a granite twang, hes devoted his entire life to the study of this genre. Ask him about it and hell explain: When all my friends went off to college, I went to Nashville. I was 19 years old playing honkytonks and getting an education. His 2018 debut, Mr. Jukebox, showcased his deep knowledge of countrys history, in particular the beery ballads of the 1950s and 60s. His mentors were George Jones, Ray Price, and Glen Campbell, but his most remarkable accomplishment was putting his own spin on their style.

Neon Blue, on the other hand, examines a very different, often forsaken era: the early 1990s. The last bastion of country music, says the professor, was the early 1990s, roughly 1989 and 1996. You could turn on the radio and immediately know youre hearing a country song. You could still hear steel guitar and fiddle. But there was a hard fork around 1996 or 97, when country veered off into pop territory. Neon Blue asks, What if that fork had never happened? What if country kept on sounding like country?

That era may have been dismissed by traditionalists at the time as slick or overproduced, but Hedley finds something exciting in that old hat-act sound, and Neon Blue plays up the excitement of bigger-than-life choruses, the relatable emotions of those sad-eyed ballads, and the inventiveness of the lively production. The sound is modern, he says, but its still discernibly country.

Tracklist:

1. Broke Again
2. Country & Western
3. Old Heartbroke Blues
4. The Last Thing In The World
5. Down To My Last Lie
6. Free (One Heart)
7. Neon Blue
8. Bury Me With My Boots On
9. Found In A Bar
10. Lets Make A Memory
11. Wonder If You Wonder
12. River In The Rain

UPC: 607396560615
Label: New West Records
Release Date: 4.22.22
Format: Vinyl