JOSHUA RAY WALKER

On his new album See You Next Time, Texas-bred singer/songwriter Joshua Ray Walker shares an imagined yet truthful portrait of a brokedown honky-tonk and the misfits who call it home: barflies and wannabe cowboys, bleary-eyed dreamers and hopelessly lost souls. His third full-length in three years, the album marks the final installment in a trilogy that originated with Walker’s globally acclaimed 2019 debut Wish You Were Here and its equally lauded follow-up Glad You Made It (the #5 entry on Rolling Stone’s Best Country and Americana Albums of 2020 list).

“The whole idea with the trilogy was to use the honky-tonk as a setting where all these different characters could interact with each other,” says Walker, who drew immense inspiration from the local dive bars he first started sneaking into and gigging at as a teenager growing up in East Dallas. “In my mind, this album’s taking place on the night before the bar closes forever—the songs are just me taking snapshots of that world,and all the moments that happen in it.”

Like its predecessors, See You Next Time came to life at Audio Dallas Recording Studio with producer John Pedigo and a first-rate lineup of musicians, includingthe likes of pedal-steel player Adam “Ditch” Kurtz and rhythm guitarist Nathan Mongol Wells of Ottoman Turks(the country-punk outfit for which Walker sidelines as lead guitarist). The album’s immaculately crafted but timelessly vital sound provides a prime backdrop for Walker’s storytelling, an element that endlessly blurs the lines between fable-like fiction and personal revelation. “I learned a long time ago that writing from a character’s perspective lets me examine things about myself without ever feeling too self-conscious about it,” he points out. Closely informed by the tremendous loss he’s suffered in recent years, See You Next Time emerges as the most powerful work to date from an extraordinarily gifted songwriter, imbued with equal parts weary pragmatism and the kind of unabashedly romantic spirit that defies all cynicism.

BEN CHAPMAN

Guided by the honky-tonk influence of Roger Miller, genre-blending enterprises of The Grateful Dead and the iconic songwriting of Guy Clark, Ben Chapman pairs groove-driven music with compelling, pitchy lyrics, offering his own effervescent take on Saturday night honky-tonk music. 

Following the release of Ben’s debut single “Hippie Speedball” which “exhibits not only his strength as a candid storyteller but also his poise as a quickly emerging artist” (American Songwriter) Ben found himself on tour with The Marshall Tucker Band and Drake White following a handful of dates opening shows for fast-rising country, americana band Flatland Calvary. 

With every impression, Ben’s music continues to find a reactive audience at live shows and on playlists including Spotify’s Indigo and Apple Music’s New Music Daily, Country Roads, New in Country, and Country Risers.