All tagged Kentucky Music
Unabashed about tackling new challenges within the bustling realm of musical genres, Josh Mitcham continues to grow his impressive catalog of creative successes without hesitation. Plucked fresh-from-the-vine today, the Kentuckian has released his premiere single “Liar, Liar,” from the forth-coming album, Color Shift, set to drop for ears everywhere on March 1st.
A clean mix of wittiness and heel-pounding sonics, Lance Rogers’ latest single, “Pretty Gone,” is here - and it’s pretty damn good.
“This song is sort of a humorous song about a guy that lost his beautiful girlfriend and is trying to figure out how it happened,” Rogers said of the piece. “As the song progresses, it becomes apparent that he drinks too much and he was really the problem the entire time.”
Fresh off of the renowned Red Barn Radio stage, which features the finest of Appalachia’s music scene, Rogers' sound glowed on the July 20th live broadcast, blending tunes from his 2021 self-titled release, as well as new works - all while backed by a full band to further compliment his dusty, dirt-road tone.
Kentucky’s own queen, Sydney Adams, has just released one of the hottest new country EPs of 2022. Sydney has been singing since she was just 12 years old starting at the Cumberland Mountain Fall Festival a little over a decade ago. A few years later at 15 she began writing her own songs. Adams hails from the little East Kentucky town of Corbin. When she’s not dominating the Kentucky Scene, she spends her time gigging down in Tennessee. Sydney’s voice is a true representation of the East Kentucky Sound whether she’s singing her own songs, or ripping up covers like Lorde’s “Royals.”
When S. G. Goodman’s lilting warble drops in on the title track of her upcoming album, “Teeth Marks,” one immediately senses the absolute deftness with which Goodman has found the cathartic vein of empathy coursing largely untapped through her listeners. The rise and fall crescendos of her “distinct warble” accompanied by the rush of soul-wasting pain and tempering moments of searing joy draw her audience in to revered silence as we listen to ethereal highs and lows brought to us on waves of new Southern Punk’s latest patron saint, who Billboard has also dubbed endearingly “the queer farmer’s daughter.”
The album has two good feet known to us as empathy and trauma. Goodman uses them to walk us through lessons in heart pains we have all experienced, but the message, mood, and tone come to us filtered through a haunted voicebox born through years of harmonizing with Goodman’s elderly church choir members while growing up in rural Appalachia. Just as her breakout album, “Old Time Feeling,” was consistently stellar from start to finish, so, too, does her upcoming 2022 offering follow suit.
When it comes to music being made by Kentuckians, most think of bluegrass or country. But even though Sean Whiting was raised along the Country Music Highway (Route 23), he is turning that narrative on its head. With bold vocals backed by a bluesy and hard-driving rock sound, Sean Whiting and the Big Badness are making a name for themselves all over the Appalachian region and beyond. Immense guitar tones and powerful drums compliment Whiting’s strong and smooth vocals. Their sound draws influence from mid-late 20th century classic rock combined with a little swampy soul and blues. The combination makes for an electric stage presence and captivating live show.
Soul-driven and home-crafted with master precision, Eric Bolander is quickly becoming a glowing jar of foothill muse. With his latest collection, Can’t Get There From Here, Bolander offers an alluring peek into his beautiful spellbook, behind a 12-track collection of gritty bliss.
“The Wind was an album that, for the first time, I felt it sounded like me and what I wanted a complete album to be,” stated Bolander, referencing his 2019 release. “The new album is about taking chances and pushing boundaries from within myself. I wanted these songs to move the listener through a journey that they, themselves, find on their own; I’m just the tour guide leading them through this space that is inside my mind.”
It’s the smooth, warm blade engrained in Bolander’s voice, along with the expert instrumentation from the band – elements that are paramount throughout each piece – that serve as hardened-proof that Bolander is continuing to grow his sound and prowess at a magical rate.
Like so many other artists, Jason Sinkhorn thought 2020 was going to be a big year for his career. He says, “I thought it was going to be my year in the sense that I’d be playing live more, being more social with my music, revamping old songs and introducing new songs live. I was just gonna go for it.” The songs for the next project that he was considering had already written by January or February. Those were songs he was taking to multi-instrumentalist and producer Severn Edmondson and everything was all done for the new project except to actually do it. Then March happened.
