Americana Highways Talks "Rhythm Of The Rain"

Song Premiere: Amelia White’s “Said It Like A King” From Upcoming Album “Rhythm Of The Rain”

Listen & Watch Song Premiere

December 7, 2018 Melissa Clarke

Americana Highways brings you this song premiere of “Said It Like A King,” a teaser from Amelia White’s album Rhythm of the Rain, due to be released in January.  The album was produced by Dave Coleman; the song features White and Coleman on guitars, Sergio Webb on guitars and banjo, Megan Jane on drums.  The album has both bassists Dave Jacques and Parker Hawkin; a duet with Will Kimbrough and an appearance by the Anti Bigotry choir, among other guests.

If you are a “lyrics-first” person this is going to resonate with you deeply, and if you like prominent rhythms, this shuffle beat will carry you all the way along.  “Said It Like a King” moves from school yard bullies, to bullies from the pulpit; winding up with a warning that little eyes and ears are watching and growing up to repeat the cycle. The message here is a sober one; seemingly innocent displays of violence in play may affect little boys in ways that are far from innocent. “Just child’s words, you say it don’t mean a thing,” carry a sober reminder of the way a child’s loss of innocence can translate into entitled supremacy later in life.

This song was written years ago with one of my favorite artists,  Lori McKenna. It started as a tune about bullies on a school bus, and grew in content to explore the religious and political varieties and tie them all back in to the child at the end,  thanks to a twist provided by third writer, Lorne Entress.  With films like Boy Erased out in theaters, and the political environment we live in it seems like such a timely song, so I re-recorded it. It’s at the heart of  the 12 songs on Rhythm of the Rain, and I love its very specific and raw feel.  — Amelia White

It’s not going out on a limb to say that what Amelia White is creating is atypical to what women in Americana are doing in general these days.  This is much darker and grittier, which renders it a welcome relief.  This is a wonderful song as a harbinger of the album to come; keep an eye out for this one here: http://www.ameliawhite.com/ while you listen for yourself, here:

"AMELIA RAINS SUPREME"- Maximum Volume Music

BY ANDY THORLEY -

NOVEMBER 30, 2018

If there were an East Nashville Music Hall of Fame, Amelia White would already be in it. The now-famous scene was in its formative days when White arrived from Boston in the early 2000s and became a fixture at the Family Wash. She’s been a leading light in America’s most musical zip code ever since, even as she’s developed a reputation in the rest of the U.S. and Europe as a first-rate songwriter. She helped define and refine the core folk-rock sound of Americana, yet her band’s energetic pulse never outshines her carefully wrought lyrics. She’s a poet who’s been compared to more famous songwriters for years; now, it would be more appropriate to use her as a benchmark.

White’s seventh album, Rhythm of the Rain, due out January 25, 2019, is a volume of ruminations and short stories written largely during a tour in the U.K. in 2016. There, at a distance and with a sense of helplessness, she watched America’s political system and her values attacked from within. Then the project was recorded by East Nashville sonic maestro Dave Coleman (The Coal Men) in an emotionally wrenching four days between White losing her mother and marrying her partner. Roots music is a journal of love and loss, and Rhythm of the Rain couldn’t be a more potent dispatch.

“As a songwriter, I feel obliged to tell the stories that are coming through in the air to me in my world whether it’s personal or political or both. That can be hard,” White says. “The antenna is always on. Man, you’ve got to feel a lot. It’s a heavy load sometimes.”

She’s shared shows with the likes of Brandy Clark, Asleep at the Wheel, John Prine, and Justin Townes Earle, as well as performed for a handful of folks in unknown cafes. “There was a point in my career where I realized you have to go out and knock on doors with your songs,” she allows. “They need to be sung for people and that means a relentless tour schedule. If I were a trucker I’d be rich.”

The 12-song collection opens with a sunny snap of drums and a slurry steel-like guitar figure, in keeping with the electric punch that’s always been a key part of White’s sound. Then “Little Cloud Over Little Rock” zooms in on a scene in a bar in Middle America, where White lets telling details evoke a situation full of mixed emotions, of resignation and perseverance. White has always gleaned song inspiration through talking with people in the cities she visits. “I find that if I truly open up on stage, people come and want to tell me about the skeletons in their closet.”

The artist balances bitterness and grace in the farewell song “Mother of Mine.” She says that after her mother’s passing, “I wrote a letter to her — a really honest letter, and of course a song came about.”

“She wanted me to be ‘a classic little girl’ and that’s not what she got. I could never say these words to her face, and now she’ll hate me from the grave,” White adds with a wistful laugh.

In a timely tune, White gives a sexist music industry the back of her hand in “Free Advice,” a song that came about after repeated DJs asked her about her age, “Would you ask Bob Dylan that?” In “Said It Like a King” (written with Lori McKenna) personal, religious and political bullies are exposed. “True or Not” (written post Women’s March on Washington) transmutes the despair of the worlds unfairness into a “peaceful battle cry.”

Though she lives in one of those famous blue islands in a red state, local evangelical bigotry was enough to prompt “How It Feels” as a celebration and affirmation of her marriage. She notes, “It’s tough growing up gay in the South — in the past year it feels like they are trying to shove us back in the closet.”

The title track has its own distinct restraint, musically and emotionally. “Rhythm of the Rain” is most distinctly set in London and most intimately tied to the slipping away feeling of the November 2016 shock. Instead of defiance, here, she tries self-comfort, curling up, breathing and tuning out a storm of hate with the white noise of a downpour.

Amelia White doesn’t chase opportunities. She chases songs and gives her entire focus to the listeners and fans who show up, year after year, to commune with her music.

Her songs and co-writes have been recorded by some of the great names of Americana music: Anne McCue, Julie Christensen, Wild Ponies, and Tony Furtado.

“When faced with whether to go out in Nashville and schmooze, or take a walk and start a song in my head I’d always choose the SONG,”she says. “And sometimes I feel that I pay for that.”

Yet we listeners are the ones getting something of value.

To see the article click here.

Video Premiere: Amelia White's Reassuring 'Rhythm of the Rain'

BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER at WIDE OPEN COUNTRY

East Nashville singer-songwriter Amelia White has been a staple of Music City's independent country scene since the early 2000s. A sought-after collaborator, White has helped shape Nashville's Americana scene and shared bills with John Prine, Brandy Clark, and more.

Now White is gearing up to release her seventh album, Rhythm of the Rain (out on Jan. 25), a 12-song collection that boldly shares stories of turmoil in America, defiance, grit, forgiveness and perseverance.

Today, Wide Open Country is premiering the video for the album's folk-rock title track, which finds much-needed comfort in what's left to trust in.

The video was shot in Nashville and the U.K. -- a fitting location considering White was inspired to write the tune by watching the 2016 U.S. election from overseas.

"I wrote this song while touring in UK and watching the bitter battle that ramped up to the Nov. 2016 U.S. election through the eyes of the BBC," White says. "'Rhythm of the Rain' is about carving out your place of peace in this mad world. I love the moment in the video where Shakespeare gazes at us, almost smirking at this mess we've gotten ourselves into."

To see the full article click here.