Two from Drew: “An Audio Guide To Cross Country Travel” and “Alone, But Not Lonely” (one’s free, the other isn’t)
In addition to coming up with one of the best album titles of recent years, Drew Kennedy recorded one of my favorite discs of 2009. “An Audio Guide To Cross Country Travel” (NimBitMusic) kicks off the journey in “Room #27” and rambles on in an Americana meets “Spoon River Anthology” roadtrip. Kennedy has written eleven short powerful character sketches including: “Headlights” (the mechanic who keeps the cars on the road and wonders what he is missing), “Miles From Anywhere” (the driver fears what he’ll miss, like Kerouac and Cassady looking for kicks, if he stops moving) and “Rolling Around In The Bed” (a guitar case and and an ex-lover are… ). Drew’s composed a moving homage to the road, the pleasures and the pain and “An Audio Guide To Cross Country Travel” is definitely a trip worth taking. You can listen to and yes, then this one is gonna cost you, purchase tracks here.
File Under: Americana / Intelligent Country (Drew proves that phrase does not have to be an oxymoron)
….and now here’s the free one:
Drew, with assistance from Lone Star Music, is offering a free download of a recent acoustic show. “Alone, But Not Lonely” features six tracks from An Audio Guide, six previously unreleased tracks and the stories behind several of them.
In Drew’s words:
“This is a pretty fair representation of what you’d get if you came to an acoustic show of mine. I think. And that’s why I wanted to do this-it doesn’t cost you anything to pick it up, and if you like what you hear, I’d really love to see you at a show. I know people are busy…I know times are tight…I know some people just don’t go out of their way to see new artists, or pick up new records. I’m trying to eliminate all of that for you. I don’t want you to have an excuse to NOT check out my stuff….I want this to be as easy as possible for you. If you like what you hear, come see me at a show, pick up a copy of my last studio record, An Audio Guide to Cross Country Travel, tell a friend where they can download the album”
And if you don’t dig what you hear, at least it didn’t cost you anything (Drew said that too but I just stole it).
More country, than alt, Drew’s definitely worth checking out. I’ve got both discs and I’ve seen him live.
The review of AAGTCCT was previously published on HickoryWind.org