Mountain Home Music has a new single today for our good friend, Chris Jones, and his trusty band, The Night Drivers.
Whither You Roam continues Chris’ tendency to compose songs with an interesting twist or angle. It combines a love story and a travelogue of sorts, where the singer relates following his beloved from here to there through their life.
Jones sees the paradox in writing a song like this while we were all tied to home.
“This is the first song I completed after the start of the pandemic, which may be why it’s a traveler’s love song during a time when we can’t travel. The word ‘whither’ has an old world feel to me, and though it’s musically pretty straight ahead bluegrass, there’s a little bit of old world influence in the song from the year I spent in Scotland a few years ago. In that case my wife ‘roamed’ there to study and I followed.”
With Jones on guitar and lead vocal, The Night Drivers are Mark Stoffel on mandolin, Grace van’t Hof on banjo, and Marshall Wilborn on bass. Tony Creasman adds a subtle and tasteful drum track.
Whither You Roam is available now wherever you stream or download music online. Radio programmers can get the track via AirPlay Direct.
If this single follows the track of other recent releases from Chris Jones, it is destined for the #1 spot on our Bluegrass Today Weekly Airplay chart, where his previous single, Quiet Click, currently resides.
And for writers who appreciate how Chris puts together his string of bluegrass hits, he will be leading a series of songwriting workshops later this month for the Walnut Valley Festival and their Spring Hands On Workshops.
On Saturday, March 20 he will host Different Approaches to the Art of Songwriting from 3:00-4:30 p.m. (CST), and on Sunday the 21st it will be Writing Songs for Bluegrass Music at 11:00 a.m. Each workshop is limited to 20 participants, and will be held virtually using the Zoom app. Pre-registration is suggested to ensure your spot, and the fee for each is $50.
You can see more detailed descriptions of both workshops online.
