Excellent debut album from a young, roving troubadour with one foot in the country and one in the town.
Sterling Drake is certainly an interesting character. He’s yet to turn 30 years old, but he has already packed a lot into his life. Born in South Florida, from the age of 17, he led a peripatetic lifestyle, and although he never saw himself as a “dyed in the wool cowboy”, he has spent time working on ranches in, amongst other places, Utah and Montana. He credits his grandfather for his interests in agriculture and country music.
This is Drake’s debut album, and it’s a very fine one. However, it’s not his first recording. In 2021, Drake released a series of singles and EPs, and in 2024, he won the “Male Honky Tonk Artist of the Year” at the Ameripolitan Awards in Austin. He says that he’s been inspired by performers such as Paul Brady, Merle Travis and Woody Guthrie whilst wanting his own songs “to feel lived-in like they’ve been passed down through time”. Drake has also been compared to Willie Nelson and Townes Van Zandt. These influences are plain to hear throughout this record. However, it wasn’t always so, with Drake commencing his musical education as a drummer in hardcore punk bands who followed the Straight Edge philosophy of abstinence from alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs. He attributes this way of thinking for keeping him out of trouble during his youth.
The album was recorded in Nashville with Grammy-winning Icelandic musician Thorleifur Davidsson, who captured Drake and his band live, and recorded them directly to tape. The album commences with the title track. ‘The Shape I’m In’ which reflects upon love, relationships and how these affect people. ‘Calusa’ is about the people who lived on the southwest coast of Florida. It sounds like it’s straight off ‘The O Brother Where Art Thou’ soundtrack. The Calusa tribe died out in the late 1700s either as the result of being enslaved or dying from infectious diseases brought to North America by Europeans.
There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of versions of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ since the first recorded versions, by people such as Georgia Turner and Lead Belly, appeared in the 1930s. Despite this, Drake still brings something new to this standard, which was the first song his father taught him on the guitar. Other covers include Townes Van Zandt’s ‘White Freight Liner Blues’ and a rendition of the Scottish Ballad ‘Tramps and Hawkers’ which was written in the late nineteenth century. ‘In My Dreams’ was a song that came to Drake “fully formed”. It captures the tension between aspiration and uncertainty and the courage it takes to pursue something meaningful, even when the outcome is unclear.
Drake’s ranching experience and time living in rural states of the US has deeply informed many of these songs. This is reflected in ‘Worthy of the Name’, in which he ruminates on the responsibilities a cowboy has to their family, land, and livestock, as well as the mental challenges this entails. Drake has said “I’ve found songs to be particularly effective tools in reaching people that might not otherwise be ready to have these kinds of conversations. Ranchers tend to have their guard up, but there’s a sense of trust and vulnerability that comes with music that can really affect change in people”. Drake is certainly no cosplay cowboy; he’s the real deal, and so is the music on this album.
