Americana Highways is hosting this premiere of The Damn Quails’ song “Peace in the Valley (King of the Hill),” from their forthcoming album Clouding Up Your City, which is due to be released on June 17. The album was produced by John Calvin Abney, recorded and mixed by Michael Trepagnier at Cardinal Song Studio in Oklahoma City, and mastered by Kevin Lively. The album’s executive producer was Missy Miller Doggett.
“Peace in the Valley (King of the Hill),” is Bryon White on vocals, acoustic guitar, and baritone guitar; John Calvin Abney on piano, keyboard, synthesizer, organ, electric and acoustic guitars; Johnny Carlton on bass; Walton McMurry on drums; Kevin “‘Haystack” Foster on lap steel and electric guitar and fiddle; Andy Adams on harmonica; and Kierston White on harmony vocals.
This is a modern, impassioned poetic offering to the often nonsensical human condition, as innocents face real danger, he Damn Quails question as to how we can rest when oppression and injustice are being meted out. This song, written a little while ago, is newly relevant now with the nonsensical aggression by Russia and other events.
I was in a relationship with a woman that loved to travel and she ended up in Israel during some pretty intense rocket attacks. I was playing in Venice, Nebraska, and wrote this song by myself in the gear trailer while the rain came down in buckets outside and I worried about the woman I loved. It was true helplessness in its purest form, and this song came out. My sister Kierston White sings the harmony part on this track and she really nails it to the wall. Our sibling harmony game is most strong. — Bryon White
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