Singer/songwriter Tom Freund has released his cover of a 1995 song by one of his heroes, legendary U.K. pub-rocker Graham Parker. ‘Disney’s America‘ is part of Freund’s forthcoming album, ‘The Year I Spent in Space’, which will be out early next year. Freund and Parker have a long history – when Freund’s 1998 album ‘North American Long Weekend’ was released, BMG put Freund and Parker on a tour bus together for a tour called ‘Tellin’ Stories.‘ It was, Freund recalls, “my first time in a bus and my first time getting to jam with Graham! We had oodles of fun, the tour was, curiously, sponsored by Hennessey (so we had enough to drink), and Radney Foster, Jeff Black, Graham and I did an ‘in the round’ on stage every night. We stayed in touch and Graham asked me to do some touring opening up as well as playing with him.”
This cover has been a long time coming as Freund expanded on: “In 2013, GP asked me to join him to appear in the Judd Apatow film ‘This Is 40.’ I am with him in a club scene early in the movie playing slide guitar and singing backups on a great song, ‘Local Girls,’ off his ‘Squeezing Out Sparks’ album. A dream come true! When he also had me on tour as opener and performing accompaniment with him for a couple years, I told him ‘someday I am gonna cover that song “Disney’s America” of yours’, and so he would give me a verse on stage each night. Well, here it is years later and during a pandemic and I thought, it’s time! I recorded it ‘live’ with me on piano and Michael Jerome on drums, and the Mastersons sang and played guitar with me on it later as well. I played it for GP and his reaction was immediately, ‘Hey mate, I’m well chuffed — love it!’ I was ecstatic to hear that. And the rest as they say is …”
