And you can listen to the track “Champagne Corolla” from the new record below. Rolling Stone reports: “Justin Townes Earle – despite a name that evokes both father Steve and his dad’s mentor, Townes Van Zandt – has always had a knack for forging a strong and unusual relationship between roots music’s past and its newest arbiters. He made songs about wandering the Lower East Side of Manhattan feel natural against his sledgehammer strums and the beat of an upright bass, and despite his taste for everything that rested outside of country’s borders – Memphis soul, swing, blues and rockabilly – he’d never ventured beyond his native Tennessee to record an album or work with an outside producer.
But Kids in the Street, Earle’s forthcoming record and his first on New West, does just that. At the production helm is Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis, who took Earle to his studio in Omaha, Nebraska, to make the LP and help the singer-songwriter transition even more heavily away from the traditional folk-country arrangements he grew up around. The album’s lead single, “Champagne Corolla,” is a subtle poke at the pastiche of an Americana musician cruising around their gentrified neighborhood in a vintage truck, when the people who settled there first toiled for something far more working-class. Stacked with horns and a Motown groove, “Champagne Corolla” is a preview of an album that Earle says will not only tackle some recent life changes – marriage, a baby on the way, a sober existence after struggling with addiction – but wrestle with the ghosts of Nashville, both sonically and physically.
The follow-up to 2015’s Absent Fathers, Kids in the Street will be released May 26th on New West – quite notably the record label of Earle’s father, with whom he has reportedly had a contentious relationship over the years. Perhaps it’s a signal that he’s moved on and, realizing the imperfect promise of parenthood, wants to make amends with the past.
Earle will hit the road to support Kids in the Street beginning this spring with a series of shows in his new hometown of Portland, Oregon.
Here’s the album’s tracklist:
1. “Champagne Corolla”
2. “Maybe a Moment”
3. “What’s She Crying For”
4. “15-25”
5. “Kids in the Street”
6. “Faded Valentine”
7. “What’s Goin’ Wrong”
8. “Short Hair Woman”
9. “Same Old Stagolee”
10. “If I Was the Devil”
11. “Trouble Is”
12. “There Go a Fool”
