Nashville based Ron Pope has announced his forthcoming album, “American Man, American Music”, on 14th February 2025 via Brooklyn Basement Records. Pope, who performed at the 2024 Long Road festival, had previously announced tour dates for the UK and the EU in early 2025 – see here for details.
The title of the album, “American Man, American Music” is a nod to Pope’s upbringing. Born to struggling teenage parents, Ron was often left in the care of relatives and regularly dealt with food insecurity. He never felt at home anywhere – until he discovered the road.
Through the album’s 10 tracks, all penned by Pope, he relates what it means, to him, to be a man, find love, start a family and build a home around it. For him, “America” is the idea of home, that everyone is welcome, and all need to keep pushing for it to be better.
The album was recorded in Nashville’s Sound Emporium studio with Pope producing assisted by Zach Berkman and Owen Phillips. Musicians working with Pope on American Man American Music include Seth Taylor (guitar), Billy Conteras (fiddle), and Jeff Picker (upright bass).
Pope has also released his latest single from the album, ‘Mama Drove A Mustang’. It’s about his then 25-year-old newly divorced mother buying a Ford Mustang, despite, with two small kids, it’s being wildly impractical. “In spite of the reasonable objections that sensible people around her registered, she went out and saddled herself a white 1989 wild horse, the coolest car she’d ever own by a country mile,” Pope recalls. “That car was something of a metaphor for my upbringing; there was lots of shit we probably shouldn’t have done, but my parents were kids too, figuring it all out as they careened through their 20s occasionally bumping into the proverbial guardrails, so we often just went ahead and made the mistake, took our lumps, and kept on rolling.”
