Victoria Liedtke and one of the nicest people in Americana, Jason Ringenberg, have announced details of a duets album ‘More Than Words Can Tell’, which is coming out March 22nd 2024. The project sees the duo deep dive into the early songwriting partnership of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, cherry-picking songs and little heard tracks from their expansive back catalogue. The first single ‘Life Ride’s The Train’ was written and recorded by Porter Wagoner in 1972 and later covered by Dolly and Porter on their 1975 album ‘Say Forever You’ll Be Mine’. “While Dolly’s extraordinary songwriting prowess certainly looms large on our album,” Liedtke comments “it’s been great to feature and celebrate some truly excellent songwriting from Porter- this song being no exception!”
Coined the “Godfather of Americana” by Mojo magazine, the former Jason and The Scorchers frontman Jason Ringenberg was awarded a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance’ by the Americana Music Association in 2009 and was intrigued when Liedtke approached him with the project idea. As Ringenberg states, “When Victoria contacted me about being the ‘Porter’ in this project, I was super excited. The Dolly-Porter duets are some of the finest duets ever recorded in country music history. I am a huge fan of them. Once we dove into the project, I was supremely impressed by the production ethic and creative ambition that Victoria brought to the table. She didn’t slavishly copy the originals. In fact, she and her team created entirely new interpretations of those classic songs.”
Victoria and Jason recorded the album at Vale Studios in Worcester, UK in the Summer of 2022 with a predominantly UK-based band. The band features CJ Hillman on electric guitar and slide guitar (Billy Bragg/Yola), John Parker on double bass (Nizlopi), Lewis ‘Burner’ Pugh on acoustic guitar and Tim Prottey-Jones on drums (First Time Flyers) as well as a plethora of guest musicians throughout.
Originally from Oklahoma, Victoria moved to the UK eight years ago and now resides in the Yorkshire Dales. “What made this project so fun was being able to bring together these incredible UK musicians that come from the worlds of Americana, Country, Folk and Pop and inject these 50 year old classic American country songs into this musical melting pot.” Liedtke continues “Both Jason and I don’t traditionally sit in that world either, so all of that combined has resulted in a colourful and beautiful collection of songs.”
The album was produced By Victoria Liedtke, co-produced by Elliot Vaughan and mixed by Liedtke & Vaughan. More Than Words Can Tell is due for release on March 22nd with pre-orders for the album beginning on December 1st – you can find more details over at this new website. In the meantime, here’s the entertaining video for the first song from the album.
