Live At The Old Feed Store will be the next release from Chris Jones & the Night Drivers. Recorded on two successive nights in Cobden, IL during the summer of 2013, it is due to hit October 7.
Often live albums are trotted out as a fresher take on the “greatest hits” format, but Chris has introduced a number of new songs here as well. A first single, Battle of the Bands, will debut in the next few weeks. It’s a Civil War ballad written by Jon Weisberger, Thomm Jutz and Charlie Stefl for 2011’s The 1861 Project, which featured several prominent Nashville singers and songwriters.
The song describes two military bands, one Union, the other Confederate, playing anthems of their home states across a field at one another. Like the rest of the record, this live version is performed by Jones’ touring group, The Night Drivers, which is Ned Luberecki on banjo, Jon Weisberger on bass, and Mark Stoffel on mandolin.
Other new songs include Like A Hawk, Then I Close My Eyes, with Emily Bankester on guest vocals, and Follow Your Heart, with Sally Jones singing harmony. Chris also reprises I Cried Myself Awake, which George Jones cut in the late ’60s, and Chris recorded with Special Consensus when he was a lad.
A number of favorites from Chris and the Night Drivers’ live show will be there as well, like Stoffel’s lovely mandolin arrangement of Edelweiss, and Luberecki’s tongue-in-cheek Cabin Of Death.
This record is a one-time departure from Chris’ long relationship with Rebel Records, and will be released privately, just this once.
Look for more details about Live At The Old Feed Store next month.
