Jesse Daniel – Countin’ the Miles
Country music has frequently been criticized (quite often, accurately) for being stuck in the past. The “good ol’ days” exist as such more in nostalgia than reality. But if you can pull the best of music from the past and cobble it into songs that fits today’s world – well, then you’ve got something. California-born Jesse Daniel has spent much of the past decade mining his native Bakersfield sound for an authentic brand of country that honors over a half century of tradition while also feeling current and alive. His new album, Countin’ The Miles, seems ready to find a place with forward-looking listeners who, like Daniel, don’t want to compromise one bit of musical integrity.
Countin’ The Miles starts off with the album’s first single, “Comin’ Apart at the Seams,” a rollicking recall of Daniel’s upbringing and young life. Raised in a broken home. Daniel sings of a father – “He taught me how to keep my word and play an old guitar” – and mother – “She taught us all about hard work and how to chase after a dream” – who still strove to set a good example, even when tensions and dollars were stretched to a breaking point. The record’s next track, “That’s My Kind of Country” is a direct response to Daniel’s more tradition-minded fans, not just in its lifestyle appeal – “I like shooting guns and catchin’ big ol’ rainbow trout/That’s what I think this life’s all about” – but in the title itself, which is a line that Daniel says he frequently hears from fans who long ago turned away from contemporary country radio. Here, pedal steel from Caleb Melo and a Jason Roberts fiddle solo make what you hear on the terrestrial airwaves…well, downright embarrassing.
Other traditional stand-bys on Countin’ The Miles include the title track, a musician’s road song that portrays what Daniel’s been chasing his entire life – “I knew the first time that I gave that old six string a strum/My heart was meant to bear a heavy load” – and, naturally, a murder ballad. The deceptively upbeat (and highly danceable) “Ol’ Montana” finds a young couple in Bozeman who’d have been better off heading anywhere else – “I chose to bring us here because of opportunity/If I’d have known the way it’d go, I would have stayed in Tennessee.” One handsome cowboy, a drunken night and a loaded .45 later, a jealous husband finds himself in a prison cell, lovelorn but without remorse – “I’d shoot that man again a hundred more times if I could.”
It’s that concept of time, though – the clash of hurried modern life and traditional music – that fuels Daniel on Countin’ The Miles, and that push and pull is best felt in two duets. The first, “When Your Tomorrow’s in the Past” was written with Jodi Lyford and has Daniel sharing vocals with his partner. One of the few downbeat tunes on the record, the pair looks back at fumbled romances – “You may think you’ve got the time/That your life will go as planned/But I took too long with mine/And it slipped right through my hands” (it would seem, happily, that this young couple has learned from their own mistakes). And “Tomorrow’s Good Ol’ Days,” featuring Ben Haggard (yes, Merle’s boy) is a slice of 70s country, full of baritone guitar riffs from John Carroll, that pushes against profit without principle – “They’re buying up the farmland and the dirt road’s being paved/All in the name of progress for tomorrow’s good ol’ days.” It’s not a political screed so much as a reminder to think beyond immediate gratification to what we might wish we’d left alone. It’s not about staying stuck in the past – like Daniel’s music, it’s about bringing the best of yesterday along with us as we head toward tomorrow.
Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “Golden State Rambler” – this double-time scorcher features a great pedal steel riff from Melo and portrays a younger version of Daniel, pre-sobriety and unwilling to stop for anything or anyone – “In his eyes there’s burnin’ embers, so you better just remember/He’ll never settle down, he’s on the run.”
Countin’ The Miles was produced and arranged by Jesse Daniel and engineered and mixed by Jacob Sciba. All songs written by Daniel, with co-writes going to Jodi Lyford. Musicians on the album include Daniel (lead and background vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar, precision), Lyford (background and lead vocals), Ben Haggard (background and lead vocals), Jon Randall (background vocals), Kevin Smith (upright and electric bass), Kris Schoen (drums), John Carroll (lead guitar, baritone and acoustic lead guitar), Caleb Melo (pedal steel, Dobro), Ronnie Huckaby (piano), Gene Elders (fiddle), Jason Roberts (fiddle) and Ted Roddy (harmonica).
Go here to order Countin’ The Miles (out June 7): https://jesse-daniel.myshopify.com/
Check out tour dates here: https://www.jessedanielmusic.com/tour
