Family Album by Stephen Simmons
This album took me fifteen years to write, but it is only a small entry into my collective family album. These songs are written through my eyes from my earliest memories to my current self. Whether it is the long held family secret of my Great-Grandfather's murder conviction in "When It Rains", wrestling with growing up in a small Southern town and navigating those hard drawn lines of color and religion in "Colors Fade", my father's Vietnam draft day in "Cannon County, 1966", or appearances from my departed Grandparents singing folk and church songs or telling stories and reciting a poem to me, this is an audio portrait of my family.
It is often the drama in life (be it love or pain, or both) that inspires us to create, but it never tells the entire story. I come from a wonderful, big, southern family and we are as complicated and messy as the next bunch. Despite our faults, it is the love that endures all. I have been blessed to know and love all of my grandparents; some of my great-grandparents, to have aunts and uncles who were like second parents to me, and a long list of cousins to grow up with. Literally, blood brothers and sisters.
It was with many of their blessings that I set up a temporary studio in my empty Grandmother's House in Woodbury, TN in August of 2018. With the help of my longtime co-creator and friend Eric Fritsch, we recorded this album over the course of two weeks and tried to capture the essence of who I am and where I am from.
Tracklist
| 1. | When It Rains | 3:47 |
| 2. | Colors Fade | 4:14 |
| 3. | Huck's Blues | 3:55 |
| 4. | Cannon County, 1966 | 2:39 |
| 5. | Miss That Ole Farm | 0:53 |
| 6. | At Granny's | 3:29 |
| 7. | I'm Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail | 0:52 |
| 8. | Brown Suit | 4:56 |
| 9. | Faith | 0:29 |
| 10. | Found | 5:07 |
| 11. | Beautiful | 0:40 |
| 12. | Cannon County, 1986 | 2:47 |
| 13. | Melancholy Days | 3:26 |
| 14. | Eddie From Woodbury | 4:40 |
| 15. | Facing East | 3:29 |
| 16. | Fifty Bucks | 3:02 |
| 17. | The Cross | 1:36 |
| 18. | Traveling Strange | 4:27 |
Credits
Produced by Eric Fritsch and Stephen Simmons
Recorded at 103 Bryson Street, Woodbury, Tennessee. August, 2018
Mixed by Eric Fritsch at Eastwood Studios
Mastered by Alex McCollough at True East Mastering
Album design by Adam Pinney
Additional photography by Amanda Risinger
Stephen Simmons: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Wade Simmons: harmony vocals
Glen Simmons: harmony vocals
Seth Simmons: saxophone
Eric Fritsch: keys, b3, electric guitar, bass guitar, drums, percussion, dilruba, horns
Martin Lynds: drums, percussion
Molly Jewell: piano, harmony vocals
Matt Roley: harmony vocals
Larissa Maestro: cello
Mike Daly: pedal steel guitar
License
All rights reserved.
Stephen Simmons was raised in the small town of Woodbury, Tennessee. As a songwriter and twenty years as a road dog, Stephen’s vision has grown to entail more than just reflections of rural America. Stephen’s records (which were compared to everyone from Johnny Cash to Ryan Adams) combine virtuosic songcraft and musicianship with unparalleled artistic honesty.