Self-titled cosmic-country artist Israel Nash has announced his complete reimagination of The Byrds’ iconic album Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which will be released on September 25th. Attempting to reinterpret the landmark record through a modern lens, Nash has turned it into a genre-bending take on contemporary American roots music. The single You Ain’t Going Nowhere is out now, and the album can be preordered here
Nash says og the new single: “My first act of sacrilege in reimagining Sweetheart was changing the entire album order right out of the gate and taking ‘You Ain’t Going Nowhere’ out of the opening slot. But this song was always an open, fluid conversation: Dylan wrote it, the Byrds answered, McGuinn changed a lyric, and Dylan later rerecorded it in a meta move that made the whole joke legendary. I just wanted to let these songs breathe a little in my world, through my own language. I wanted to join that old conversation, make it new, move it forward, and invite everybody else into it.”
The album comes at a busy time for Nash, having reclaimed ownership of his back catalogue and finished building his dream studio in the Texas Hill Country, he found himself free from the relentless schedule of album cycles and finally able to call his own shots. Sweetheart of the Rodeo was developed during a prolific era that found him releasing a deluxe version of Rain Plans, creating the instrumental Moods album, and continuing to write his own original songs.
Nash approached this album not as a museum piece that couldn’t be touched, but as a reminder that if americana has never stood still, why should he? “I don’t look at Sweetheart of the Rodeo as a covers album,” he says. “It’s a reimagination. I’m changing melodies and writing new arrangements, reinterpreting an album that opened the floodgates to Americana music nearly 60 years ago. If that was Americana then, then what is Americana now? I wanted to put my own twist on that sound with Sweetheart, exploring where this music is going, rather than where it’s been.”
“Sweetheart of the Rodeo” Tracklist:
1. Pretty Boy Floyd
2. Hickory Wind
3. You Ain’t Going Nowhere
4. You’re Still On My Mind
5. One Hundred Years from Now
6. You Don’t Miss Your Water
7. I Am a Pilgrim
8. The Christian Life
9. Blue Mountain Rockies
10. Nothing Was Delivered
11. Life in Prison
