Chris Jones drops bluegrass single
Tuesday, July 23, 2013 – Chris Jones & The Night Drivers return today with a new single - the title track of their forthcoming Rebel Records release, "Lonely Comes Easy."
Available to consumers at iTunes, Amazon and other online music stores, the single recasts the song - written and first recorded by Jones on his country-flavored "Too Far Down The Road" (2006) - in a bluegrass vein, sketching through telling details the portrait of a man and his not-so-swinging bachelor pad. Instrumental work is provided by the Night Drivers, while IBMA Momentum Award Vocalist of the Year Emily Bankester joins Night Driver Mark Stoffel on harmonies.
The full "Lonely Come Easy" album, which features original material contributed by all of the Night Drivers, is slated for an Aug. 27 release. The disc is the first in four years to feature almost all new songs and follows the mostly retrospective "Lost Souls & Free Spirits: The Rebel Collection."
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There's a low-key elegance to the music of Chris Jones, which sometimes takes his bluegrass tunes to unexpected places while remaining firmly in the wheelhouse of his chosen genre. Jones and the Night Drivers explore folk and blues directions alongside more traditional tones.
As a songwriter and singer, Jones' forte is quiet, contemplative songcraft such as "Raindrops Fell," a story of destinies entwined and the Civil War era tale of sacrifice and community in "Old Bell.
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The ongoing, if pyrrhic, battle for the soul of bluegrass, rages among newgrass, traditional, jamgrass, browngrass and flavors in between. Chris Jones and the Night Drivers are neo-traditionalists: they follow the Monroe bluegrass form (two instrumentals per album, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, bass and banjo), but infuse it with a current Nashville sensibility that strikes a clever balance.
Calling Chris Jones and The Night Drivers neo-traditionalist is not damning with faint praise; rather, it
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What is a band to do between studio recordings? If you are Chris Jones & the Nightdrivers, you return to a comfortable haunt-in this case, The Old Feed Store in Cobden, Ill., and just let the (digital) tape roll. You include audience favorites - mandolinist Mark Stoffel's rendition of "Edelweiss," paired with "Forked Deer" and banjoist Ned Luberecki's 'perfect bluegrass song' "Cabin of Death" - and some songs recorded long ago - "I'm
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