Here’s some the best Americana and roots-type music releases for November 3rd, 2023. Click the artist or album links to find out more. The artist’s names link to their websites and the CD title links go to either Amazon, iTunes, Bandcamp or the artist’s site for ordering or downloading. A + sign means although not a featured release, it’s a notable album that’s still worth checking out. Also, this page will be updated as I find out about other new releases so check back again.
Suzy Bogguss
Prayin’ for Sunshine (Loyal Duchess Records)
On her previous two albums, Bogguss wrapped her warm, crystalline, and sometimes hard-edged vocals around familiar American folk and pop songs and the songs of Merle Haggard. On her new album she wrote and produced the entire album, co-writing songs with her husband and co-producer Doug Crider, Matraca Berg, Gretchen Peters, Pat Bergeson, and Bill Lloyd. Prayin’ for Sunshine moves from supplication to celebration, reveling in the joys of friends, family, community, her fans, and storytelling. Prayin’ for Sunshine showcases Bogguss’ lyrical and musical ingenuity, her nod-and-a-wink humor, and her deep love for her community of friends and fans. And the album reminds us again just how radiant and transportive Bogguss’ vocals are. (edited from No Depression review)
Jaime Wyatt
Feel Good (New West Records)
“I’m still learning how to experience joy, how to be free, how to be comfortable in my own skin,” says Wyatt. “A lot of us grow up feeling like we have to hide who we are just to be accepted, but that comes from a place of fear and judgment. I wrote these songs as a way of letting go of all that, as permission to feel good.” Feel Good, Wyatt’s new album, is more than just a permission slip, though: it’s an invitation. Recorded with Black Pumas’ Adrian Quesada, the record is built on tight, intoxicating grooves that belie the songs’ substantial emotional stakes. Taken as a whole, the collection stands as a radical act of creative liberation from an artist already known for pushing limits, a genre-defying work of healing and self-love that tips its cap to everything from Al Green and Otis Redding to Waylon Jennings and Bobbie Gentry in its relentless pursuit of peace and pleasure. (from press release)
Also new this week…
Al Backstrom – Wild Colonial Boy (Wild Colonial Boy Records)
Colin Cutler – Tarwater (self-released)
Elliot BROOD – Town (self-released)
Ben Gage – Two Singing Songs (self-released)
Heather Anne Lomax & Michael Doman – The Doman Tracks (Blackbird Record Label)
Jeffrey Martin – Thank God We Left The Garden (Fluff and Gravy Records) +
Bonnie Montgomery – River (Gar Hole Records)
Our Man in the Field – Gold on the Horizon (In the Field Recordings)
Sylvia Tyson – At The End Of The Day (Stony Plain Music) +
Coming out soon… Jon Dee Graham, Chris Stapleton, Vincent Neil Emerson, Kerri Powers, Kristen Grainger & True North, Amos Lee, The Wilder Blue, Terry Klein, The Resonant Rogues, John Craigie, John Leventhal, Sarah Jarosz and more!
