[Cover photo credit to Riana Lisbeth]
Canadian Roots artist Ollee Owens has announced her third album, From Now On, which will be out on February 26, 2027. It brings together her “lifelong connection to the blues with the wider sounds of American roots music.”
Owens has also released the album track “Common Ground”, out now. At a moment when ideological, political, racial and religious divisions are tearing through families, communities and nations, “Common Ground” is a song that “speaks directly into the distance between us.”
Written by Owens with Phil Hughley (CeCe Winans, TajMo and The War and Treaty) and Kornelius Colyn in reflection of current times, the song “asks that we we face the fear, greed and exclusion we have allowed to take root and accept that none of us stands entirely outside the problem.”
From Now On was recorded in Nashville with Juno-and Grammy-winning producer Colin Linden, a collaborator of Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, The Band, and many others. Linden has spent decades working in Country, Folk, Blues, and Rock & Roll, which made him the perfect partner for Owens, who traveled to Nashville to make the album.
Working with a live band that included Linden (guitar), bassist Johnny Dymond, drummer George Receli, and keyboardist Mike Hicks, Owens tracked the album’s 10 songs during a four-day stretch of live-in-the-studio recordings. This approach “embodied the album’s central message, too” since “these are songs about connection, collaboration, and the importance of remaining honest as we move forward.”
The album’s sound reaches back to Owens’ past. Raised in a small farming community on the Canadian prairie, she grew up with music like Elvis and the Beatles, Outlaw Country and Gospel. Owens and her brother discovered Delta Blues on their own. Even though she launched her career with releases like 2022 Cannot Be Unheard and 2024’s Nowhere to Hide (which won the 2025 Canadian Blues Music Award for Emerging Blues Artist of the Year), those other early discoveries stayed with her.
Though Owens has a strong history with the Blues, From Now On reaches towards a more inclusive picture of traditions.
Owens explains:
The blues has always been at the heart of my music, but it isn’t the only sound that shaped me. I grew up surrounded by music that moved across genre lines, and with this album, I wanted to give all of those influences room to breathe. Colin understood where those threads connected. He helped me bring them together in a way that remains deeply rooted in the blues while revealing more of who I am as an artist.
We all want to know what’s around the bend, but life doesn’t usually give us that kind of certainty. That’s really the heart of this album for me. From Now On doesn’t mean everything suddenly gets easier. It means we stop waiting for easy before we start living again. We let ourselves be loved, we make room to grow, and we keep taking the next step — together.
