Singer/songwriter and guitarist Jubal Lee Young is returning with new album Wild Birds Warble on June 28th, 2024. It marks his first album release in ten years following many life circumstances and struggles that put any wide-ranging project on pause.
Young’s father, Steve Young, was an inspiration within the Outlaw Country movement and best known for writing The Eagles’ song “Seven Bridges Road” as well as Waylon Jennings’ song “Lonesome, On’ry & Mean.” Young’s mother, Terrye Newkirk, composed original songs “My Oklahoma” and “Come Home, Daddy” and was one of the Tulsa Oklahoma music tribe who migrated to Los Angeles in the mid ‘60s.
For the new album, Wild Birds Warble, Jubal Lee Young covers and reimagines the work of esteemed influences and major songwriters in his life, many of whom he knew personally, including his father, Steve Young, but also David Olney, Warren Zevon, Townes Van Zandt, Mickey Newbury, Richard Dobson, and Utah Phillips.
The album also features one original track, “Angel with a Broken Heart” which first appeared on Young’s 2011 album but has been reinterpreted for the new collection. It arrives this week on April 26, 2024, and we are very pleased to debut both the song and lyric video here on Wildfire Music + News today.
“Angel with a Broken Heart” was quite directly written by Jubal Lee as a tribute to his own father Steve, and the lifetime he spent in music as a hardworking songwriter and performer. As such, the song also really extends love and appreciation, as well as understanding, to all those who feel the call to reach audiences through music. There’s an authenticity to Jubal Lee’s observations about a musician as a working person that rings out in his phrasing, by contrast with “some plastic outlaw up on the charts.” It speaks to a childhood spent not just watching his father and mother’s work in music, but the many friends and community members who did likewise. Far from romanticizing the struggles and hardships that the music life usually entails, Jubal Lee elevates the emotion behind the personal commitment of the musician spotlighted in the song and dignifies it. That gives extra weight to the powerful description, “He…sings like an angel with a broken heart.”
Particularly noteworthy is that in this new rendition, the song leans heavily into Roots music, bringing in accents and elements in which audiences can find their own memories of touring musicians, whether it be from Bluegrass, Country, Blues, or other traditions. Jubal Lee suggests the wide range of backgrounds that all stem from the same particularly American tradition of music by doing so. There’s also a simplicity to the presentation that suggests a community of players in conversation that speaks to a shared empathy for the subject matter. It’s hard to imagine a more emotive performance of this song than the one that Jubal Lee and his fellow musicians captured for this album.
Jubal Lee says about the track:
The only Jubal Lee Young song on the whole collection. Previously released on my “Take It Home” album (2011) (re-recorded for this release), this was my tribute to my father and the many hard working troubadours out there in the world.
Reflecting on the period of time between his last album and Wild Birds Warble, Jubal Lee finds plenty of clarity:
I think I went through what I’ve come to call ‘manopause.’ ‘I’ve mellowed while also coming to realize that I’m not a young upstart anymore. I’ve learned to reconcile the fact that certain changes — both physical and mental — were needed in order to sustain myself and move forward to the future. I’m still somewhat in the middle of navigating that.
That’s what I have been doing for a decade: navigating. Navigating the ever changing, often stormy seas of life on life’s terms. Never quitting, just shifting focus where it was needed, for as long as it was necessary. Writing, dreaming, planning… none of that ever stopped. I also had to take into account the fact I was pursuing a career as a single father and a caretaker to aging parents, and also trying to strive despite limited resources.
The new album was Produced, engineered, and mixed by Markus Stadler at Bumpin’ Heads Studio in Nashville, and mastered by Alex McCollough at True East Mastering in Nashville.
Wild Birds Warble features an array of support musicians. Jubal Lee provides vocals, guitar, and harmonica, while Markus Stadler adds dobro, mandolin, banjo, baritone guitar, and vocals. Brian Zonn also plays bass, while Christian Sedelmyer plays fiddle, Jeff Taylor plays accordion, and Charlie Pate offers occasional mandolin.
