About

On a cold January morning, along the banks of the Rio Grande, Bard Edrington V and the Blackbirds assembled to begin recording his 4th solo album.  Out of these sessions comes “Tired and Branded”, twelve original songs backed by his best band to date.  Rich three part harmonies sung by Sarah Ferrell, Bill Palmer and Karina Wilson.  Karina’s diverse and stunning fiddle playing blurs the line between classical and country.  Alex McMahon paints a soundscape of large sweeping vistas reminiscent of the New Mexico sky’s.  All the while Jim Palmer is adding his signature East Texas rhythm to the mix.  Behind the board, mixing, producing and mastering is Bill Palmer, the man that has been there on all of Bard’s recordings.  

 

The album kicks off with the psychedelic honky tonk number Sometime I Do It Wrong. A introspective song about getting it wrong the first time and finally doing it right.  Karina and Sarah’s harmonies set the tone for the rest of the album.  Vertigo begins with Jim and Sarah laying down an ear worm of a beat before the vocals come in. Blurring the lines between folk and rock Bard sings about the struggles that life sometimes deal, “she says your cussin’ and your bitchin’, best just keep it out my kitchen and don’t leave for boots by the door”.  Alex McMahon’s brilliance shines on the mystical folk song Dance Across the Desert Like Rain.  “Watch her dance across the desert like rain, she holds mysteries you can’t explain, she makes life and she feels pain”. Countless days spent in the wilderness of New Mexico inspired this song.  Mother Nature holds many stories that she tells and many our ears will never hear.  The best we can do is keep our eyes open and watch in unfold.  Stonewalls of Dent is a love song set in the town of Dent in the Yorkshire Dales.  The song was written one early morning on a stone wall during a break in Bard’s summer 2023 tour.  It tells the story of a sheep herder and a maidens forbidden love for one another.  A folk song at heart, Tired and Branded is the story of a young man and his fathers forays into the wilderness.  They become branded by the experience and tired from the journey.  Karina’s spectacular old time fiddling shines on this song.  Torcido in spanish means twisted or crooked.  An old bull elk succumbed to his wounds in the Torcido valley of Colorado.  Bard was there to witness it and tell the story. “This cut runs deep like the torcido valley, as I walk out of its grand finale”.  Sarah Ferrell’s lead vocals and songwriting are featured on her soulful and sultry original Down River. The range of her voice follows the ups and downs of the characters journey to move down river. “You told me your secrets and I told you mine, you asked if is was hurtin’ and I said I was fine, cause I’m a stronger woman than you’ll ever be a man”.  Taos Lightning tells the historical story of the famous 19th century distilled liquor from Taos, NM and how it led to the Taos Pueblo Revolt.  Sarah drives this upbeat folk song with her walking bass line while Karina’s fiddle keeps you moving down the trail.  If Waylon Jennings and Woody Guthrie had a songwriting session it might sound like Spring In New Mexico.  Jim lays down his trademark flat tire groove while Bard sings about the harshness of NM springs, where tumbleweeds ride dust devils a 100’ high. During Bard and the Blackbirds Netherland tour they stayed in the seaside town of Zandvoort. “Fried gravy and cold beer, they’ll never get us out of here, the oldest bar in Zandvoort, live it hard cause life is short”.   Dancing to your Song came to life as they bounced from pub to coffee shop and “stuck out like a sore thumb”.  It took 15 years record the song 489.  Written for his son when he was 2, after a ride on the scenic Cumbres and Toltec railroad in northern New Mexico.  Karina takes the song to the high country like a coal fired cajun train.  The album wraps up with the mellow tune, Ember in the Fire.  A reminder to “open up and slow down” and take time to be in the present with the ones you love.  “Hope like an ember in the fire, that’s waiting on your bright spark, to shine”.

 

Come here these songs live when Bard and Karina embark on their second tour of the United Kingdom.  The depth of the songs will open up live as Bard tells stories about how they came to be.