[Cover photo credit to Darin Back]
Texan Singer/songwriter Jon Dee Graham will be releasing his first album in seven years, Only Dead For a Little While, on November 10th, 2023, via New West subsidiary Strolling Bones Records. Graham is known as a seminal figure in Texas Punk and Americana (The Skunks and True Believers), as a guitarist for other artists, and as a singer-songwriter.
The new album brings Jon Dee Graham back to the New West family, where three albums he released helped launch him as a solo artist.
Of the title, detailing his 2019 experience, he says: “..it wasn’t a near-death experience, it was death death.”
He’s also shared an animated video by musician Chuck Prophet and Lauren Tabak that tells the story of “the day I died,” and his dream of an afterlife where old friends meet around a campfire with the song “see you by the fire.”
He adds:
I want to do real magic in my songs. I mean, I can do sleight of hand with the best of them, and, you know, alliteration, and make the words line up and dance. But I want to be one of those people who actually make the woman disappear. In this song, it’s like, hey, you know those people who are gone? They’re not really gone. Because way up ahead I see that glow. And we’ll all meet each other by the fire.
Along with original songs, the album also covers “Death Ain’t Got No Mercy,” in a raw and stark rendition of the Rev. Gary Davis song.
