Joshua Hedley is back with a new sound. After exploring mid-century countrypolitan on his debut Mr. Jukebox and Nineties roadhouse country on Neon Blue, the singer-songwriter and walking country music encyclopedia is returning with All Hat, his textured take on Western swing.
The record was produced by Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel and features 11 songs, 10 of them originals, recorded at Benson’s studio in Austin, Texas (Hedley co-wrote one track with Brennen Leigh). To kick off the record, Hedley is premiering “Fresh Hot Biscuits,” which he wrote the night before it was recorded.
“If you know Western Swing music then you know it’s heavily rooted in dance culture,” Hedley tells Rolling Stone. “As much as people wanted to foxtrot or waltz they still wanted to hear a good fiddle breakdown too. Thats really the inspiration behind this song; or behind the whole record really. You make a Western Swing album…you put a waltz on it, you put a polka on it, a two-step, a Charleston, a blues, whatever, but you damn sure better put a breakdown on it, too.”
Like Neon Blue, All Hat is a record meant to be heard and experienced live in a dancehall; It is a different kind of party record. “That’s what people did back then when they had a night on the town, they went out to the dancehall or the ballroom or whatever they had in the area and they danced to live music,” says Hedley.
“In Texas a lot of that evolved out of square dances where you’d sometimes just have a fiddler and a caller. But you know, that carried over into the Big Band era too. So up in New York or Chicago you might have a Big Band playing straight ahead jazz, but down in Texas everything was still very rural-based and, for lack of a better term, old timey; so even though you had these Western Swing bands that were becoming more and more influenced by the current jazz trends, you’re still playing a dance, so you gotta give the dancers what they want.”
All Hat will be released Oct. 24 on New West Records.
All Hat track list:
1. “All Hat (No Cattle)”
2. “Boogie Woogie Tennessee”
3. “Fresh Hot Biscuits”
4. “Stuck in Texas” (feat. Ray Benson)
5. “Hedliner Polka”
6. “Come Take a Ride With Me”
7. “Clueless”
8. “Mean Mama Blues”
9. “Crawlin’ Home to You”
10. “The Waltz I Promised to You”
11. “Over the Line”
