KEXP adds “Falling Apart” from Jesse’s new record, One For The Dance Halls

We’re excited to report that KEXP/Seattle added a track off Jesse Dayton’s new disc, One For The Dance Halls – available on December 21. Our pal Don Slack added “Falling Apart” and said he really digs the record! Right on.
If anyone needs a review copy or something for their station, be sure and email us at Oneforthedancehalls@gmail.com and we’ll shoot you over a digital copy.

You can also hear “Falling Apart” on Sirius/XM’s OUTLAW COUNTRY.

Here is a little somethin’ somethin’ about the record in Jesse’s own words:

Amigos around the world-

You have a better chance of beating out Brad Pitt for a leading role in Hollywood, than your country band does getting a weekly Thurs. night gig at the Broken Spoke in the Live Music Captial of the World, Austin TX. Ernest Tubb & his Texas Troubadors, Bob Wills & Texas Playboys, Willie Nelson & the Family Band, George Strait w/ the Ace-In-The-Hole Band, (just to name a few…they’re we’re lots more), all used to have regular shows at James Whites’ Broken Spoke. With the success of doing the soundtrack and playin the part of Capt. Clegg in Harvey Weinstien and Rob Zombies Halloween 2 movie, I knew it was time to make another solo record & doing this film thing had given me financial freedom for the 1st time in my life, so I said “What the hell, why not make a record that the crowd at the Broken Spoke would love?” Even though the place is packed every week, there’s a core group of dancers in Austin whom I started referring to as “The Solid Chrome Dancers”…a country take-off from the 70’s disco era “Solid Gold Dancers”…they’re literally the best 2-step dancers in the world and I knew if I could come up with some new material that they loved, I’d be on my way to making a legendary country record that might stand the test of time…my other records had always had a few country songs, a mexican-border tune, a rockabilly song, a Cajun tune, etc., but I’d never made a straight ahead top-to-bottom country record that consisted only of shuffles, straight-8’s, ballads and of course a waltz. By this time, I’d become very aware of all the can’t-singer-songwriters who we’re popping up after Steve Earle in the so-called Texas Music scene and that no one was really crooning and actually “singing” except for a few others whose material seemed blantant re-writes of classic country songs and vocally seemed like they we’re doin impressions of Merle, Hank Williams or whoever…I wasn’t really hearing THEIR voice. Not to mention, I’d played on guitar on a Ray Price record called “Prisoner Of Love” and listened to the greatest country crooner of all time lay his vocals down in the studio AND had played guitar on Waylon Jennings “Right For The Time” and saw how Waylon created harmonies w/ himself…a big effect on me that made me think about phrasing and singing in general. Then came time to find the right choice of songs. Pootie, (Willie’ road mgr. RIP), once told me when I was tryin to write a song, “ya know Jess, not even Willie wrote ALL the songs on his records and he’s the greatest writer around”. I realized this was true…Willie had not written one single song on “Stardust”, (his biggest record), or hadn’t written “Blue Eyes Cryin In the Rain” his break thru single, not to mention many many others he’s known for. I immediately called my friend Mike Stinson who had written a hit for Dwight Yoakum and started co-writing with him….we wrote the title track “One For The Dancehalls” and “Pretty Girls Make The World Go Around” in less than 24 hours and one bottle of Jim Beam. Then I called Damon Bramblett and asked him for some material…he sent me a bunch of songs that we’re ALL great but I chose “Falling Apart” , (cause I could relate to the character in the story for one), and a beautiful waltz Damon had written for his parents anniversary called “The Years” which harmonica-God, Mickey Raphael came into play on from Willie Nelson’s band…sure to be a Texas wedding song for many moons. I scrounged together a few more, one I co-wrote w/ Trent Summar in Nashville to have one song to represent that newer straight-8 dancehall song that’s common in dancehalls across Texas and of course a Billy Donahue song, (whose played bass in my band, Dale Watsons and David allen Coes), which he wrote in the early 80’s while being the musical director at Gilley’s in Pasadena TX. which went onto being a duet I sang w/ my singing partner Brennen Leigh. I was unscrupulously harsh on all the material on this record from a producers stand point. I wanted songs I knew would stand the test of time and not sound like re-writes, so I made changes to them accordingly…like “The Bad Ol’ Days” was a standard shuffle but I put a big Don Williams pop chorus on it…Camden Town written about a drinking establishment where my hero from the punk world Joe Strummer used to write and drink, a subject matter I knew would be different for the record….a Nick Lowe song I simply loved called “Lately I’ve Let Things Slide” where I put on my arranger hat and wrote an all out classic country arrangement for it….these are things I thought would “shake up” the same ol’-same ol’ country record stuff…oh well, we’ll see? One more thing, I wanted to call the record “One For The Dancehalls” because growing up in Texas, my folks and everyone for that matter used to go to dancehalls and dance the night away….these dancehalls are still here, but sad to say most are filled with chairs now or with frat boys screaming at the top of thier lungs standing in front of the stage…like the rest of America, Texas seems to be in trouble and losing part of our regional charm…it worries me, but what are ya gonna do? With the record industry and the publishing-print industry crumbling before our very eyes, who knows what will happen with this record? All I know is, thank God that movie stuff came along, (yes, I’m slated to do 2 more films in 2011), cause now I can make whatever kind of records I want…wether they “get it” or not, but dang, I hope they “get it”!

sincerely, Jesse Dayton

You can PRE-ORDER the record NOW at www.jessedayton.com
You’ll receive a FREE CD single of “Christmas in Jail” with all pre-orders

Record will be available December 21 on STAG Records

Check out the first of many webisodes Jesse’s been making:
http://vimeo.com/17448322

Thanks for reading!