Neon Blue by Joshua Hedley
Joshua Hedley is “a singing professor of country & western,” he declares on his raucous and witty new album, Neon Blue. It might sound like a punchline, but it’s not. An ace fiddle player, a sharp guitarist, and a singer with a granite twang, he’s devoted his entire life to the study of this genre. Ask him about it and he’ll explain: “When all my friends went off to college, I went to Nashville. I was 19 years old playing honkytonks and getting an education.” His 2018 debut, Mr. Jukebox, showcased his deep knowledge of country’s history, in particular the beery ballads of the 1950s and ‘60s. His mentors were George Jones, Ray Price, and Glen Campbell, but his most remarkable accomplishment was putting his own spin on their style.
Neon Blue, on the other hand, examines a very different, often forsaken era: the early 1990s. “The last bastion of country music,” says the professor, “was the early 1990s, roughly 1989 and 1996. You could turn on the radio and immediately know you’re hearing a country song. You could still hear steel guitar and fiddle. But there was a hard fork around 1996 or ’97, when country veered off into pop territory. Neon Blue asks, What if that fork had never happened? What if country kept on sounding like country?”
That era may have been dismissed by traditionalists at the time as slick or overproduced, but Hedley finds something exciting in that old hat-act sound, and Neon Blue plays up the excitement of bigger-than-life choruses, the relatable emotions of those sad-eyed ballads, and the inventiveness of the lively production. “The sound is modern,” he says, “but it’s still discernibly country.”
Tracklist
| 1. | Broke Again | 2:32 |
| 2. | Country & Western | 3:05 |
| 3. | Old Heartbroke Blues | 3:18 |
| 4. | The Last Thing In The World | 3:09 |
| 5. | Down To My Last Lie | 4:05 |
| 6. | Free (One Heart) | 3:47 |
| 7. | Neon Blue | 2:51 |
| 8. | Bury Me With My Boots On | 3:14 |
| 9. | Found In A Bar | 2:49 |
| 10. | Let’s Make A Memory | 4:06 |
| 11. | Wonder If You Wonder | 3:15 |
| 12. | River In The Rain | 3:53 |
Credits
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Produced by Jordan Lehning and Skylar Wilson
Recorded by Justin Francis at Ronnie’s Place, Nashville, TN
Mixed by Kyle Lehning at The Compound, Nashville, TN
Mastered by Casey Wood, Nashville, TN
Management: J.D. McCorkle at Usonian Artists
Photography: Joshua Black Wilkins
Model: Bessie Pearl Dennie
Art Direction & Layout: Jeremy Fetzer
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Joshua Hedley - Vocals
Evan Hutchings - Drums, Percussion
Viktor Krauss - Bass
Tim Galloway - Acoustic Guitar
James Mitchell - Electric Guitar
Billy Nobel - Piano, Organ, Synthesizer
Jenee Fleenor- Fiddle, Mandolin
Scotty Sanders - Steel Guitar, Dobro
Charlie Worsham - Harmony Vocals
Jordan Lehning - Synthesizer, Harmony Vocals, Background Vocals
Kyshona Armstrong - Harmony Vocals
Lilah Lehning - Background Vocals
Skylar Wilson - Background Vocals
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Joshua Hedley would like to thank his family, friends, and everyone who had a hand in the inspiration and creation of this record. Joshua Hedley would also like to thank his fans for sticking around while he got things figured out.
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License
All rights reserved.
An accomplished fiddle player, Hedley got his first fiddle at age 8, and by 12, he was playing with the pickers at the local VFW. At 19, he moved from his native Florida to Nashville, becoming an in-demand sideman at Robert’s Western World and other bars, and ultimately, a well-respected frontman. Armed with an easy croon and prodigious fiddle playing, he became known as the Mayor of Lower Broad.