Americana Highways is pleased to premiere this track, “Drowned and Washed Away,” from Eric Brace, Peter Cooper & Thomm Jutz’s forthcoming album Riverland (Red Beet Records). The trio produced the album which is due out on February 1, 2019. Riverland recounts lyrical stories about the Mississippi River and the experiences — both wonderful and harrowing — of living on its shores.
In “Drowned and Washed Away,” and indeed over the entire album, following the tradition of all the greatest storytelling songwriters, Brace, Cooper & Jutz have woven a stirring tapestry of abject trauma over haunting, understated musical intricacy. With the trinity of acoustic guitars, rhythm section Mark Fain and Lynn Williams, and the layered accoutrements of Mike Compton on mandolin, Tammy Rogers on fiddle and Justin Moses on banjo, the music carries the song through subtle sophistication. The chorus: “Now here’s a river fifty miles wide, took my reason to stay, look over yonder, you can’t see the other side, drowned and washed away” sends vicarious chills of terror as the listener is awash in the emotions that accompany witnessing that kind of natural disaster.