Aaron Raitiere: Single Wide Dreamer
Photo by Alysse Gafkjen
Witty, folky, yet not over-seasoned, GRAMMY Award-winning songwriter Aaron Raitiere’s debut album, Single Wide Dreamer, is something you didn’t know you’ve been missing. Raitiere’s distillation of the everyday ups and downs of a regular person who’s “been through it” shines like the crooked grin of a long-lost best friend.
Out May 6 on Dinner Time Records/Thirty Tigers, Single Wide Dreamer is the fruit of decades of paid dues. Already a well-known songwriter with cuts by Maren Morris, Brent Cobb, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde, Anderson East, The Oak Ridge Boys, Midland, Shooter Jennings, Hayes Carll, Raitiere won a GRAMMY for Best Song Written for Visual Media for A Star Is Born’s “I’ll Never Love Again,” co-written with Lady Gaga, Hillary Lindsay and Natalie Hemby.
“These are stories about me. It’s all true,” he says. “It sounds a little different, and I’m shooting more for the storyteller thing than the singer thing, because that’s more what I am.”
The title track, “Single Wide Dreamer,” causes the listener to exhale and recall an easy-going yet stalwart best buddy. An amalgamation of two good friends’ songs about each other, Raitiere admits “This wound up being a character who folks relate to because most people know this person.”
“He’s as easy as ‘at breeze a blowing up the skirt on Marilyn Monroe
…if heaven ain’t for him, hell, I don’t wanna go.”
Four years ago, Raitiere gave producers Miranda Lambert and Anderson East a collection of songs and the opportunity to curate arrangements, guest vocals, and the tracks that actually made the cut for the 12-song album. Lambert shares, “I had so much fun working on this project with Aaron. He is truly one of the most amazing artists and humans I’ve ever known. He is legendary and I’m honored to be a part of this record and to call him a friend. I can’t wait to see what happens with this music.”
Lambert previously recorded a version of the song “For the Birds,” which comes to life on Single Wide Dreamer with trumpets, bouncy percussion, and other feel-good flourishes. This Silverstein-esque litany of positive thesis statements should be on everyone’s “anti-shitty day” playlist.
Raitiere explains, “I think the record kind of made itself, and that was the vibe I was going with. It was just a bunch of friends getting together trying to help me create something, because they thought I needed a record.” He continues, “I don’t think there was an intended theme, but it came out to be representative of this time in my life where I was falling in and out of love and learning how to deal with it.”
This reflective, some-shade-of-grateful tone bubbles through with nostalgic imagery in the native Kentuckian’s “At Least We Didn’t Have Any Kids.”
“I’ve got your name tattooed on my hip bone / But at least we didn’t have any kids
…looking back I thought we were forever / But I reckon that we changed our minds / So I covered you up with the state of Kentucky/ You got the dog an’ I got the canoe / Maybe its sad, maybe its lucky / Maybe we did all we could do / I call it redneck, white, and blue”
Recorded at both Nashville’s legendary RCA Studio A and The Casino, Single Wide Dreamer was engineered by Brandon Bell and Eric Masse and features musicians Brian Allen (bass), Ben Clark (trumpet), Darren Dodd (drums, percussion), Jake Mitchell (12-string guitar), Scott Murray (slide guitar), Chris Powell (drums, percussion, congas), Frank Rische (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, 12-string guitar) and Phillip Towns (piano, mellotron, B-3 organ) with background vocals from Kristen Rogers.
The Ivy League-educated Raitiere met co-producer Anderson East during his master’s program in Recording at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro about 15 years ago. When East was discovered by Dave Cobb, Raitiere was tapped to help co-write some new material for East’s subsequent album. Impressed, Cobb then signed Raitiere.
The bond between Raitiere and East was further forged - literally - when Raitiere lost everything in a house fire in 2015. East showed up with an empty tour trailer and helped salvage what they could. Undeterred, they headed out on tour with Sturgill Simpson – with East opening and Raitiere slinging merch.
“That was my first taste of the road,” notes Raitiere. “But it was work. We were in the Northeast in the winter. It also made me realize that he was an artist and a performer, and I was a writer. That was where I really realized that I could sit there and see my songs working. Because it was just my best friend with a guitar, singing to a serious crowd.”
“I’ve got so many friends that are artists that are doing well, where my music is like theirs, or they’re already singing my song,” he says. “If you want something to work out, you show up for it. I know I’ve got it in me and I think it’s got a shot.”
Upon his album release, Raitiere will make his Grand Ole Opry debut on Friday, May 6.
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