A Night Without Love to be Released April 10, 2020
On Night Without Love, Mississippi Musician Hall of Fame icon Webb Wilder pleases and shocks, soothes and rocks, and meets every un-expectation. Equally versed in two glorious worlds, Rock and Roll – with a strong side of Outlaw Country. He is a force on tour and a tour de force. He is the last of the Full Grown Men and Roots Rock Royalty.
Night Without Love is Wilder’s eleventh album, and it was recorded at George Bradfute’s Tone Chapparal studio near Nashville, with a crew of like-minded friends including genius guitarist Richard Bennett (Emmylou Harris, Mark Knopfler), spectacular harmony vocalist Rick Schell, and Bradfute, whose multi-instrumental wizardry adds layers to the aural proceedings. Flournoy Holmes, who created art for remarkable albums including The Allman Brothers’ Eat a Peach, designed the album cover.
Webb has been an early adopter of using all manner of media to make an impression. He was one of America’s first satellite DJ’s on Sirius Radio, the X-Country channel. He starred in cult movie classics featuring the character of Webb Wilder, created by his old pal R.S. Field. Field is the man whose music and visions long ago helped mild-mannered young ‘un John Webb McMurry of Hattiesburg become rock ’n’ roll’s “Electrifying Artist,” Webb Wilder. Beginning with 1986’s classic debut It Came From Nashville, Wilder emerged as a barnstorming hero who delivered a peculiar mix of rockabilly, poetry, and tomfoolery. These days, some folks call Wilder’s music Americana, though it is as impacted by mods and British Invaders (of the guitar-wielding kind) as it is by the country music he’s heard all his life or the blues and R&B sounds recorded by his aunt Lillian, who founded Trumpet Records and recorded Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson. To throw more genres in the mix, Paste Magazine put It Came From Nashville on their list of the 50 Best Southern Rock Albums of All Time.
The album opens with “Tell Me What’s Wrong,” originally recorded by English pub band The Inmates. It moves through an eclectic mix of songs from the pens of Field, Russell Smith (of the Amazing Rhythm Aces), Chip Taylor (“Holdin’ On To Myself,” initially recorded by country artist Stoney Edwards), David Hidalgo and Louis Perez of Los Lobos (“Be Still”), and Tommy Tucker (“Hi Heel Sneakers”).
Wilder wrote the evocative “Illusion of You” with help from cohort Joe McMahan, and the twangtastic “Buried Our Love” with Field and Suzy Elkins, bandmates from his 1980s Texas days with The Drapes, and “Ache & Flake (Go With the Flow)” with bass maestro Tom Comet. “Sweetheart Deal” came from a Valentine’s Day writing session with the great Dan Penn of “The Dark End of the Street” and “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” fame.
“I spoke to Dan about getting together, and he said, ‘Call me on Valentine’s Day,’” Wilder says. “I agreed to, telling him before-hand that we would make it ‘a sweetheart deal.’”
The album is a yin-to-yang turn from a man who has known nights without love, who has heard the drums that pound in the night, and has emerged wiser but no less determined to amp up and holler.
TOUR DATES
Apr 7—Knoxville, TN—Sweet P’s Downtown Dive (solo)
Apr 10—Nashville, TN—Grimey’s Record Store—6PM
Apr 17—Birmingham, AL—Workplay Theater (solo)
Apr18—Jackson, MS—Hal & Mal’s (solo)
Apr 24—Memphis, TN—Hernando’s Hideaway (band)
Apr 26—Clayton, GA—Parker Ranch (solo)
May 2—Columbus, OH—Natalie’s Grandview (band)
May 11—Jacksonville Beach, FL—Chapel Concert Series at the Beaches Museum (duo)
May 15—Hattiesburg, MS—Thirsty Hippo (band)
May 16—Jackson, MA—Duling Hall (band)
May 29—Nashville, TN—The Basement, Nashville, TN (band)
June 5—Milwaukee, WI—Shank Hall (band)
June 6—Madison, WI—The Winnebago (band)
June 13—Buchanan, TN—The Breakers Marina (band)
July 18—Kansas City, MO—Knuckleheads Saloon (band)
July 19—LIncoln, NE—The Zoo Bar (band)
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