REVIEW: Teddy Long “Head For the Hills”

Teddy Long Head For the Hills

Teddy Long’s new album Head For the Hills comes on slow and strong with songs about clashes between values, life and mortality, and life’s hard knocks and redemptions. This is veritable quality songwriting carried on Teddy’s signature nice and easy delivery style.

“Head for the Hills” opens the album gently as Teddy references fires burning in California in an eerie prophetic way given recent tragic events in Los Angeles, and “people turning to the Bible like it was the end of days.” This is achingly beautiful and bittersweet commentary on that feeling that we need to escape what society has become. And then there’s this: “when you flip on the tv all you hear about is the wall / when they finally build it it’s gonna protect us all / from what that is, man, they just don’t say / when you don’t know your neighbor you’re always afraid.” and then the powerful “and just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, some psychopath cop murdered an innocent black man and sends our country into a f-ing tailspin.”  

“Small Town Summertime Throw Down” is hushed and a dark with baritone guitar as things build up to tension in a small town: “It ain’t been the same since that young man drowned / Horrible sadness hanging over that Town / Put a girl in a wheelchair and then in the ground /Yeah, it ain’t been the same since that young man drowned.” 

“How Billy Mitchell Wound Up Dead” is a dark tale of a molester brought to justice, and when Mary took matters into her own hands: “She dropped him where he stood / Billy never had a chance / She buried that bullet in his head she sent him to hell / And she will never tell / How Billy Mitchell wound up dead.” Chillingly recounted by Teddy solo on acoustic guitar.  This one is the template for Teddy’s songwriting ability.

“Million Bucks” confronts the way that folks we consider friends can harbor values we just can’t accept, and how to move on after the friendship ends: “Funny how you think you know someone / Until it’s their time to shine / And then it’s all just a rerun / And a waste of your time.” Nice and easy with baritone guitar in the mix. 

Teddy is an archetypal quality Americana artist, with the most authentic style and vocal delivery it’s a great album.  Find more details here on his website and check out the rest of the album: http://teddylongmusic.com

Musicians on the album are Teddy Long on acoustic guitar and vocals; Lang Freeman on electric guitar, baritone guitar, banjo, bass guitar, keyboards, background vocals, and percussion; Fred Mandujano on drums and percussion; Jason Caviola on electric guitar and dobro; Brian Douglas Phillips on pedal steel; Natalie Price on background vocals; Natalie Long on background vocals; Waylon Long on voice; and Lee Ashlee Fletcher on background vocals.

All Songs on the album were written and arranged by Teddy Long. It was produced, engineered and mixed by Lang Freeman at FOLSUR Recording; and mastered by Kevin Butler at TestTube Audio.