Mr. Jukebox. The Mayor of Decrease Broadway. The Singin’ Professor of Nation & Western. No matter you wish to name him, Joshua Hedley has been a radical preservationist of precise nation music for years, holding courtroom in a unbroken residency at Robert’s Western World on Decrease Broadway in Nashville, serving to to beat again the rising tide of unhealthy music.
The whole lot that Joshua Hedley does is nation. For him, it’s not a query of genres, however eras. In 2018, he awoke the Countrypolitan period with Mr. Jukebox. In 2022, he was forward of the sport by evoking ’90s nation with Neon Blue, together with quite a few songs co-written by some child named Zach High. Hedley may’ve returned to that effectively once more since ’90s nation is so sizzling, however he’s all the time stayed one step forward of the sport in rekindling the previous. So on his new album All Hat out October twenty fourth on New West Information, Hedley’s going Western Swing.
Hedley’s no stranger to the subgenre. Actually, his first ever file was a tribute to Western Swing the singer and fiddle participant recorded when he was solely 15 years outdated. At that time, he’d already been enjoying fiddle for seven years.
“I discovered a duplicate of it lately, and it’s not as unhealthy as I anticipated. I’d solely been singing in public for about two weeks, however I’d’ve been a greater fiddle participant then than I’m now,” Hedley says. “I didn’t develop up enjoying in storage bands. I grew up on the goddamned VFW corridor. I grew up enjoying with guys of their fifties and sixties. Once I first heard Asleep on the Wheel and their Bob Wills tribute, it blew my thoughts that there was a band on the market nonetheless enjoying this type of music.”
That’s why when Hedley determined to make a brand new Western Swing album, he went on to the supply for assist. All Hat was produced by Ray Benson of Asleep At The Wheel, with quite a few members of the band taking part within the recordings as effectively, together with well-respected fiddler Jason Roberts.
“Clearly [Ray] was within the producer function and he did produce the shit out of this file, however loads of it was him simply letting us lower free and see what occurs,” Hedley explains. “We’d work out a track and he’d step in with some options. It was superb to see the way it’s achieved not solely in actual time, however from one of many greats. I don’t suppose he is aware of simply how a lot he was instructing me.”
Although when some consider Western Swing, they may factor of a stuffy, outmoded, fuddy duddy model of nation, that’s not the method Hedley takes to it. “At its core Western Swing is simply dance music,” he says. “Bob Wills didn’t play theatres; he performed dance halls. The music is for dancing, and that’s what I needed to come back via on these songs.”
Who is aware of, maybe Hedley would be the spearhead for the revitalization of Western Swing as a well-liked artwork kind, just like what he did for ’90s nation. Why is bluegrass such a large music class, and Western Swing so under-represented? Hedley will do his half in presenting the great thing about the artwork kind come October twenty fourth. New track “Recent Scorching Biscuits” is out now.
All Hat is now out there for pre-save/pre-order.
TRACK LIST:
1. All Hat (No Cattle)
2. Boogie Woogie Tennessee
3. Recent Scorching Biscuits
4. Caught in Texas (feat. Ray Benson)
5. Hedliner Polka
6. Come Take A Journey With Me
7. Clueless
8. Imply Mama Blues
9. Crawlin’ House To You
10. The Waltz I Promised To You
11. Over The Line
