The music business is notoriously one of ups and downs, of genius overlooked and mediocrity promoted with everything the record label has got. Mikey James has had some share of parts of the tale -from making demos on a 4-track in the early 90s, to his brush with the millennial zeitgeist as the drummer in Longwave, Mikey James’s road through the music industry has been a meandering one, full of stops and starts, triumphs and disappointments. However, a chance meeting with an old bandmate, Anthony Kuhn, has sent them along a new Americana path as Singing River.
With Anthony Kuhn adding distinctive slide work, James has rediscovered the joy of making music for music’s sake and working with a partner again. Recording and producing the music themselves in their collective home studios, the result is what James likes to call “northern folk.” it’s a reference to his admiration for the likes of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Robbie Robertson, and Bob Dylan. And on ‘Everyday Love‘ you may just be able to detect the tiniest hint of the Jayhawks.
