Rebel Records has released their first single for Starlett & Big John, i.e., Starlett Boswell and Big John Talley, of eastern Virginia. The two have only been working together this past three years, though both have a bluegrass heritage going way back.
It’s the debut track from their upcoming Rebel project, Living In The South, one the two of them wrote called Straight 58. Talley says the title will make sense to anyone who travels across southern Virginia, near the Carolina line.
“Starlett and I have agreed for awhile that we needed to write a song about Highway 58, which is the main road that parallels the Virginia/North Carolina line and stretches the full length of the state. Coincidentally, both of us live right off of the Highway but three hours apart from each other. So, one night when she had left my house after a rehearsal to head home she called back to tell me it was raining. I said be careful since Highway 58 is so straight and she replied, ‘Yes Straight 58 back to the mountains.’ She immediately began humming a melody and told me to grab a pen, and we then began writing the song. We started going back and forth with the wording and trying to put a heartbreak twist on it, along the lines of other memorable road songs we were familiar with, like Highway 40 Blues or Lost Highway. And that’s how Straight 58 was born.”
They were supported in the studio, their own recording studio in Southhampton, VA, by David Carroll on banjo, Jonathon Dillon on mandolin, and producer Ron Stewart on fiddle.
Check out Straight 58…
Straight 58 is available now from popular download and streaming services online.
Look for more news about Living in the South in the near future.
