Hey, Everybody! Good news—Perfectly Legal was released to Americana and Triple A radio today. It has already been added by stations in Seattle (KBCS), Fredericksburg, Texas (KFAN), San Francisco (KFJC), Columbia, Missouri (KOPN), Johnson City, Texas (WETS), Fort Meyers/Naples, Florida (WIKX), and Allentown, Pennsylvania (WXLV) and is being distributed digitally through Burnside Distribution on iTunes and Amazon. The links have been posted on the homepage at glennabell.com, and CD’s will be available at retail outlets from coast to coast on October 19. In honor of the occasion, I’ve posted Honky Tonk Man, which is the fourth song in an installation of eight. Go to glennabell.com to read about the making of the album. Click on the song titles on the music page to read my impressions of each song as they play for you “in stereo.” Soon, I will be posting a list of radio shows, nationwide and in Europe, where you can hear more from the album. In the meantime, I will leave you with a memory:
Honky Tonk Man was the theme song for a Clint Eastwood movie back in the '70s and was introduced to me by executive producer, Kevin "Big Kev" Ploghoft, during pre-production in New Jersey/New York. We were looking for several "perfect" songs to cover on the album, and when Big Kev played me Merle Haggard's version of Honky Tonk Man, proposing that I record it as a duet, I immediately loved the idea. During SXSW we met up with my long-time duet partner, John Evans, and some members of Hayes Carll's backing band at The Congress House Studio out on old South Congress Avenue in Austin. We all felt at home in this humble, wood-frame house on a sleepy old road just south of the Live Music Capital of the World. The sense of comradery is what I remember most about the Congress House sessions. We really had fun. A couple of the players were Houston boys I hadn't seen or recorded with in a while, and one of them I didn't know but turned out to be somebody I probably will know for a long time. And John certainly did not disappoint as the Honky Tonk Man -- heck, who could be better for the role than Mr. Honky Tonk himself?! And so, I am proud to present this stone-cold country duet that lets you peer through a keyhole into the lives of two people who find temporary relief from the pain of love's loss in one another's arms. The theme is classic and timeless. All the emotion is there, along with every subtlety that has gone by the wayside in most of today's mainstream country music production. Check out the gorgeous steel guitar part, and all the other lovely touches that this song has to offer.
"Hey, I love the transition from the waltz. I had no idea it could even be done that way. I like it.
tu amigo in low places,
Dewayne Blackwell"
(Note: Dewayne Blackwell wrote Honky Tonk Man and co-wrote Friends in Low Places, amongst many other great songs.)
Y’all come!