Swamp Dogg
RELEASES NEW SINGLE “MEMORIES (FEAT. JOHN PRINE)”FROM NEW ALBUM SORRY YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT OUT MARCH 6th
via JOYFUL NOISE RECORDINGS, PRE-ORDER
“For ‘Sorry You Couldn’t Make It,’ the countrified follow-up to his 2018 comeback ‘Love, Loss and AutoTune,’ the cult singer headed to Nashville, teamed up with John Prine for a few tunes, and delivered a straight-forward country-soul collection of off-kilter torch songs.” – Rolling Stone’s ‘70 Most Anticipated Albums of 2020’
Swamp Dogg today released his new single “Memories (feat. John Prine)” from his new album Sorry You Couldn’t Make It, produced by Ryan Olson (Poliça), due out on March 6th via Joyful Noise Recordings and Pioneer Works Press. Originally written and demoed in his forties, “Memories” was recorded at Nashville’s Sound Emporium in early 2019. The indelible, psychedelic ballad finds Swamp Dogg dueting with Prine (“It’s the first time I seen John since the sixties!” said Swamp) and backed by a crack studio band led by Derick Lee (a keyboard virtuoso who worked as the musical director of BET’s Bobby Jones Gospel Show for nearly four decades), with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) on guitar.
Swamp Dogg explains: “‘Memories’ is my personal take on: unnecessary lies, sex, death, old school chums; the concept of love, family and friends(?).”
“Memories” follows first single “Sleeping Without You Is A Dragg” – featuring piano by Vernon and backing vocals by Jenny Lewis and Channy Leaneagh (Poliça) – that caught the attention of Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, Consequence of Sound, Paste, and Brooklyn Vegan, among others.
The follow-up to 2018’s critically acclaimed, Olson-produced Love, Loss, And Auto-Tune, Sorry You Couldn’t Make It allows Jerry Williams, aka Swamp Dogg, to finally dive into the sound he grew up playing: country. While the 77 year-old Williams’ most enduring persona is the psychedelic soul superhero Swamp Dogg—a musical vigilante upholding truths both personal and political since 1970’s immortal album, Total Destruction To Your Mind—he will tell anybody who will listen that he’s considered himself country this entire time. “If you notice I use a lot of horns,” Swamp says. “But actually, if you listen to my records before I start stacking shit on it, I’m country. I sound country.”
These are narratives about love, of missing the one you love, of compassion, family and friends, and even the kind of love that transcends death. Sorry You Couldn’t Make It sees Swamp come full circle, and closes what has felt to him like unfinished business. “They didn’t have any blacks in country until Charlie Pride came along,” he says. “But in time, all things change and that’s what has happened to country music.” Surveying today’s Nashville reality, Swamp sees opportunity: artists as divergent as Darius Rucker and Lil Nas X are converging in a genre that he once worried might never give him his shot. “I’m anxious because it’s like I’ve taken all my money and put it on one horse,” he says. “But I believe in this horse.”
Sorry You Couldn’t Make It Tracklisting:
- Sleeping Without You Is A Dragg
- Good, Better, Best
- Don’t Take Her (She’s All I Got)
- Family Pain
- I Lay Awake
- Memories (feat. John Prine)
- I’d Rather Be Your Used To be
- Billy
- A Good Song
- Please Let Me Go Round Again (feat. John Prine)
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