Ana Egge is set to release Bad Blood via Ammal Records on August 23rd. The 12-song set was produced by Steve Earle and recorded at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, NY. Bad Blood was mixed and mastered by Ray Kennedy (Earle and Kennedy's production partnership includes the Grammy winning Lucinda Williams album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, the Ron Sexsmith favorite Blue Boy, and many more). The album features a stellar backing band consisting of Steve Earle, Allison Moorer, Byron Isaacs (Levon Helm Band), Rob Heath (The Madison Square Gardeners), and Eleanor Whitmore and Chris Masterson (Steve Earle and the Dukes & Duchesses, The Mastersons). Steve Earle stated, "Ana Egge's songs are low and lonesome, big square-stare noir ballads which she plays on a guitar she built with her own two hands and sings like she's telling us her deepest, darkest secrets."
In the midst of coping with family members suffering from mental illness, Ana Egge was compelled to write the songs featured on Bad Blood. She stated, "It can be difficult to explain the realities of mental illness to people who don't have any firsthand experience. Loving someone whose reality ebbs and flows drastically from your own, you're constantly trying to imagine what they're thinking and feeling, but that's a crooked road. Sometimes there's no reason, there's no why." She continued, "Dealing with this can feel so isolating because no one wants to talk about it. These songs came out of the need to communicate. I drove it into my writing." On the title track "Bad Blood," Ana approached mental illness as a character unraveling and wreaking havoc on the world with the lyric "Bad Blood runnin' wild in the west, bad blood runnin' away." She wrote the song "Hole In Your Halo" after visiting a family member in jail and seeing how destructive the disease is and how it can turn people against themselves. In "Driving With No Hands," she tries to capture the potentially dangerous and erratic behavior that accompany the manic swings of the illness. Bad Blood conveys compassion and hope for redemption. With Earle's driving production and Egge's lilting melodies, the songs belie the dark undercurrent of the subject matter.
Ana Egge was born in Estevan, Saskatchewan and grew up in the town of Ambrose, North Dakota, population 50. At 12, the family relocated to Silver City, New Mexico, where her parents established a school by the name of Down To Earth. Her astrology teacher, Don Musser, was an accomplished luthier and the summer before she turned 17, Musser invited Ana to apprentice with the intention of helping her build her own guitar. She drove to his house once a week for seven months until the guitar was completed and it is the main guitar she continues to play today. After living in Austin, TX for five years in the 90s while working on her music, Ana returned to Silver City and began building her own house on her sister's land just outside of town. While she still maintains the home and visits often, she has called Brooklyn, NY her primary home since 2002.
Ana Egge has toured and shared the stage with Lucinda Williams, Ralph Stanley, John Prine, Ron Sexsmith, Shawn Colvin, Joan Armatrading, Iris Dement, Richard Thompson, George Jones, and many more.
Bad Blood Track Listing
1. Driving With No Hands
2. Hole In Your Halo
3. Bad Blood
4. Walking With The Wolves
5. Motorcycle
6. Evil
7. Hands And Knees
8. Shadow Fall
9. Chestnut Tree
10. Silver Heels
11. Your Voice Convinces Me
12. There Won't Be Anymore
Ana Egge On Tour (More Dates To Be Confirmed)
7/21 New York, NY Arts World Financial Center's Summer Plaza Series
8/3 Cambridge, MA Club Passim
8/6 Saratoga Springs, NY Caffe Lena
8/9 New York, NY The Living Room
8/12 Portland, OR Secret Society Portland
8/13 Seattle, WA Concerts In Your House
8/17 Bellingham, WA Green Frog Cafe Acoustic Tavern
9/7 New York, NY The Living Room
9/22 Austin, TX The Mohawk
10/7-16 The Netherlands (Dates TBA)
10/16 Ottersum, NL Roepaen Festival
10/17 Edinburgh, Scotland Robertson House Party
10/18 Stanley, England South Causey
10/19 London, England The Green Note
10/20 Stoubridge, Birmingham England Katie Fitzgerald's
10/23 Brighton, England The Prince Albert
10/24 Nottingham, England The Maze
10/25 Leicester, England The Musician
10/26 Chorlton, Manchester England Dulcimer Folk Bar
10/27 Glasgow, Scotland Venue TBA
10/28 Inverness, Scotland Venue TBA
10/29 Rothesay, Isle of Bute, Scotland Musicker Cafe
10/30 Strathpeffer, Scotland Coffee Shop
11/1 Ullapool, Scotland Argyll Hotel
11/2 Dunnet Head, Scotland Lighthouse
11/17 Marlboro, NY The Falcon
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment