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Kendell Marvell - Thursday, September 25th - Salon Series at Highlander Mountain House

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ABOUT KENDELL MARVEL

Acclaimed solo artist. Grammy-winning songwriter. Road warrior. By the time Kendell Marvel moved into a 200 year-old farmhouse in the Tennessee countryside in 2021, he'd already spent more than two decades expanding the boundaries of modern-day country music. Albums like Lowdown and Lonesome and Solid Gold Sounds were showcases for his blend of southern twang and super-sized vocals, filled with songs that split the difference between honky-tonk country and roadhouse rock & roll. Marvel's catalog reaches far beyond his solo work, too, with artists like George Strait, Gary Allan, and Chris Stapleton all landing Top 40 hits with his compositions. The man had clearly left his mark. If he'd chosen to celebrate his new home by taking a few months off, the vacation would have been well-earned. Of course, you can take the man out of Nashville, but you can't take the Nashville out of the man. Hours after moving in, Marvel unpacked his guitars and quickly got to work in his new space, writing songs that blended timeless textures with contemporary insight. He began with "Younger Me," a nostalgic ode to young manhood and resilience that became a Grammy-winning hit for the song's co-writers, Brothers Osborne. He kept writing during the months that followed, fine-tuning the mix of country-rockers, soul standouts, and bluesy ballads that now fill his third solo effort, Come On Sunshine. Recorded in Dallas, TX, with producer Beau Bedford — ringleader of The Texas Gentlemen, as well as the sonic architect behind albums by Paul Cauthen and Leah Blevins — Come On Sunshine burns as brightly as its name. These are songs for Saturday night hell-raising and Sunday morning comedowns. They're stand-your-ground anthems and help-your-neighbor rallying cries. They're sharply-written tunes about booze and breakups, true love and false prophets, bad habits and proud traditions, delivered by a songwriter who's lived enough life to confidently chronicle its ups and downs. "I'm 51 years old, which means I'm long past the point of catering to anybody," Marvel says. "I'm just telling the stories I want to tell, whether it's a song like 'Come On Sunshine' — which Devon Gilfillian and I wrote at the height of the pandemic, looking to pour some light into the people who were shut in, shut down, and struggling with the doom and gloom we were all seeing on TV — or “Keep Doing Your Thing,” which argues that the world would be a better place if we just let people be who you are." He even zeroes in on money-hungry televangelists with "Put It In The Plate," a southern-fried stomper that's already become an audience favorite during Marvel's ongoing tours with Chris Stapleton. "It's got that sound I grew up loving, like Hank Jr's songs in the '80s," he explains. "It's not country, it's not rock; it's just a perfect mixture of all of it. It's an interesting song because it's calling out the righteous gemstones of the world! Maybe it'll piss people off, but sometimes, the truth does that."


The truth goes down a little easier when it's set to a soundtrack of greasy funky-tonk and nuanced Tennessee twang, though. At its heaviest moments, Come On Sunshine leans closer to the rock & roll side of the country-rock divide, with Marvel delivering amplified anthems like "Don't Tell Me How To Drink" with the gruff growl of a lifer who's earned the right to call his own shots. "Brother, I've spilled more on the barroom floor than you've ever had, so let me do my thing," he barks in his deep baritone, backed by cymbal crashes and ringing power chords. If those moments nod to the ZZ-Top-meets-Merle-Haggard sound of his Keith Gattis-produced debut, Lowdown and Lonesome, then tracks like "Hellbent on Hard Times" and "Dyin' Isn't Cheap" salute the vintage warmth of 2019's Solid Gold Sounds, which Marvel recorded with The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach. Come On Sunshine finds the middle ground between those two records, its diversity mirrored by Marvel's broad list of collaborators. Auerbach makes another appearance, this time as the co-writer of the piano-driven drinking song "Off My Mind." Mickey Raphael, longtime harmonica player for Willie Nelson, adds atmosphere and ambiance to "Dyin' Isn't Cheap," while Stapleton serves as a co-writer and backing vocalist on two tracks. Finally, solo artists like Dee White, Waylon Payne, Dean Alexander, Kolby Cooper, NRBQ's Al Anderson, and Josh Morningstar all contribute to the remaining songs. Such a lengthy guest list brings with it a number of different perspectives, which Marvel insists is the whole point. "I like to work with people who are different than me," he notes. "Working with Beau Bedford in Dallas meant that I was playing with guys I'd never met before. Guys who had different ideas, different tones, and different ways of playing than my friends back home. We recorded the album live, finishing the whole thing in four days. That's how you capture magic. The same thing can be said for the people I write with. I prefer left-field people — people who come from different backgrounds and different genres. Devon Gilfillian comes from the R&B world; he hears different melodies than I do. Waylon is a gay man, so he has some experiences that are different than mine. I love to surround myself with people like that, and sit in the writing room with someone who isn't just like me. Because that's how you capture magic, too."


It's been nearly 25 years since Marvel — a native of southern Illinois, where he began playing barroom gigs at 10 years old — moved to Nashville and wrote Gary Allen's Top 5 hit "Right Where I Need To Be" during his first day in town. With Come On Sunshine, he proves that one's day in the sun can last a lifetime, as long as you're willing to listen to the muse, challenge your perspectives, and chase down the magic in front of you.


ADDITIONAL....

Kendell Marvel wrote and recorded his previous record, Solid Gold Sounds, in a matter of days, but it took a lifetime in country music to get there.

“Country was always my thing,” Marvel says. “My dad got me a guitar when I was 5, taught me a few chords, and I started learning country songs. It probably got me through a lot of times I didn’t even realize when I was kid. It felt like those songs were speaking to me.”

The new project is Marvel’s first release for Easy Eye Sound, the Nashville label launched by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. Rather than dipping into their own catalogs, Marvel and Auerbach co-wrote nine of the album’s 10 songs, rounding out the collection with a lush rendering of the Bee Gees classic, “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You.”

Auerbach co-produced the album with Dave Ferguson (Johnny Cash’s American Recordings). As one of the first people to discover Marvel’s new creative direction, Ferguson made the necessary introductions that led to creating Solid Gold Sounds.

“It was very easy and collaborative,” Auerbach says. “These songs had to tell the story about Kendell and his life as a songwriter because I wanted that to be a focus, too. He’s not craving the stage or craving the spotlight. This record comes from a humble place, which I really love.”

In some ways, Solid Gold Sounds is a throwback to Marvel’s formative years, when distinctive artists like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Charlie Rich dominated the radio. Yet the album also reflects Marvel’s life now – as an accomplished songwriter, an incredible singer, and a proud father and husband. Listening to it as a whole, there’s a mature perspective that comes through his rumbling vocals – one that reflects nearly 50 years of his own experiences and influences.

“Kendell has this amazing voice, and when he backs it off a little bit, it opens up and sounds humongous,” Auerbach says. “It’s so resonant and the microphone just eats it up. We got him to sing a little softer on this record, not to actually sound softer, but so we could turn him up louder.”

“They brought the singer back out of me,” Marvel says. “I’ll always be a songwriter, but I want people to see the artistic side of me.”

To round out the writing sessions, Auerbach brought in collaborators, such as country legend John Anderson on “Hard Time With the Truth.” Other songwriters on the project include “Big” Al Anderson, Ronnie Bowman, Pat McLaughlin, Paul Overstreet, and Bobby Wood. Like these writers, Marvel has had his share of mainstream success but few contemporary country artists are seeking them out these days. Because of that, Marvel decided to quit writing for radio.

“As a professional songwriter, you have to get on the radio. That’s your job,” he explains. “There came a time when the stuff you had to write to get on the radio, I wasn’t willing to do anymore. I’d done pretty well as a songwriter up until that point, and made a few decisions where I didn’t have to put myself in that position. So I said, ‘I think I’ll make a record.’”

Although there’s an undeniable swagger throughout Solid Gold Sounds, Marvel proves to be an exceptional balladeer on love songs like “When It’s Good” and “Musta Kept It For Himself.” He gently offers a message of forgiveness on “Let It Go,” while “Roots of My Raisin’” concludes the album with a nod to the foundation provided by his family.

Marvel’s father worked as a welder in the coal mines of Southern Illinois and would frequently bring his buddies home to listen to his five-year-old son, who had an unusually deep singing voice for a kid. By 10 years old, he was singing with the band in a local dancehall.

At 14, Marvel’s life took a tragic turn when his older brother was killed. His parents divorced shortly after that. For a fresh start, he transferred to a different high school, where he met his future wife. Basketball games and local gigs were keeping him up late – and teachers kindly overlooked his morning naps in the classroom. When he was around 17, he was introduced to an artist manager and music attorney in Nashville through a mutual acquaintance. Although Marvel wanted to be a recording artist, he heeded their advice about learning to write songs, too.

“So I honed my craft,” he says, “and my motto was ‘I’ll try to write for people better than me.’ I still do that. There are always things to learn.”

 
 
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