When: 7.30pm on Thursday 27 July 2017
Where: Night & Day Cafe, 26 Oldham St, Manchester, M1 1JN

PLEASE NOTE: Due to exceptional demand, this show has been upgraded to Night & Day Cafe! Original tickets remain valid, and all other details stay the same.

We’re delighted to be working with Sam Outlaw Band for the first time!

Cynicism comes easy, but having a soft heart takes real guts. Sam Outlaw’s new album Tenderheart dares to tread gently and look inward, with unapologetic sentiment and un-ironic nods to country music’s greatest neon rainbow chasers.

Since the release of his 2015 debut Angeleno, Outlaw remains one of LA’s only modern country singers to earn international acclaim. And with his follow-up Tenderheart he shows an impressive refinement of his artistic identity. Sonically, the album further elaborates Outlaw’s ‘SoCal Country’ sound: a sun-bleached, Baja-influenced twang that deftly points to country’s neo-traditionalists and LA’s legendary singer-songwriters. Thematically Tenderheart is a thesis on self-discovery and the power of love – a course set with the opening chords of Everyone’s Looking For Home. The opening track is a cinematic, mariachi-laced meditation on Outlaw’s own conflicted quest for peace amongst the chaos of his chosen path.

Along the way he also takes a look around, and Tenderheart’s revelations are most potent when filtered through Outlaw’s distinctive Los Angeles vantage point. Bottomless Mimosas is emotionally hollowing in its portrayal of west coast existentialism while Bougainvillea, I Think and Dry In The Sun round out this trio of ‘Los Angeles songs’ that explore the city’s faded beauty and define SoCal Country beyond instrumentation.

Trouble, one of the album’s standouts, makes being bad sound pretty damn good with determined ‘Side A’ swagger and kicks off a song cycle that chronicles a heart’s bend, break and mend. She’s Playing Hard To Get (Rid Of) showcases acerbic wit in teary three-four time, setting the scene for Two Broken Hearts – a wounded lovers’ getaway story with an open ending. Over the course of these thirteen songs it becomes increasingly apparent why his clever intertwining of country tropes and crisp modernism has so impressed country music fans, critics and songwriters alike. (Alt-country pioneer Ryan Adams just recently praised Outlaw, calling his work ‘beyond great songwriting’.)

Angeleno’s critical acclaim also led to 18 months of international touring. He entertained thousands of festival-goers with a prime slot at Stagecoach, made four trips to Europe, toured Australia twice and played several hundred gigs in the USA. After all those miles it’s fitting that Tenderheart bottles the energy of the songs that have become mainstays of his live show. Fan-favourites like Diamond Ring and honky-tonk sing-along All My Life finally get proper studio treatment, along with Look At You Now, a regular highlight of his acoustic tours overseas – where Outlaw is nominated for AmericanaUK’s International Album of the Year alongside Sturgill Simpson and Margo Price.

Not one to mess with a winning combination, Sam called on many of the same musicians that made Angeleno such a success: harmony singer Molly Jenson, pedal steel pro Jeremy Long and guitarist Danny Garcia, along with Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes) and Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket). Produced by Martin Pradler and Outlaw, and recorded in the San Fernando Valley, Tenderheart also features Erwin Vasquez and Mariachi Teocuitatlan, a local mariachi group who appeared in the video for Angeleno’s title track.

Now two years into his new life, Outlaw has learned that great dreams can only be achieved at great cost. And at its core, Tenderheart is the outcome of another lesson learned: if your heart stays true, the sacrifice is worth it.

‘Sam Outlaw is rewriting the sound of Country, 2,000 miles from Nashville’ – CBS This Morning

‘An instant classic’ – NPR Music

Tour support comes from Worry Dolls. Go Get Gone is the debut album from Worry Dolls – a tenacious female duo born out of the joint talents of Zoe Nicol and Rosie Jones. Recorded in Nashville and produced by Neilson Hubbard (Matthew Perryman Jones), a veteran of East Nashville’ s music scene, it features song-writing collaborations with Jeff Cohen (Teitur), Ben Glover (Gretchen Peters), Joe Doyle (Reba Mcentire) and stunning playing from Wild Ponies, Eamon McLoughlin (Ashley Monroe), Kenny Hutson (Little Big Town) and more.

Opening the show is Michaela Anne. Upon releasing her 2014 album, Ease My Mind (Kingswood Records), singer-songwriter Michaela Anne garnered considerable acclaim for her introspective songwriting. The New York Times praised the ‘plain-spoken songs of romantic regret and small-town longing’ and the Village Voice listed it among its Top 5 Country Albums of the year. Since then, however, this once-solitary diarist has transformed herself into a gregarious storyteller. Michaela Anne has discovered her inner extrovert.

Bright Lights and the Fame (Kingswood Records), recorded at Farmland Studio in Nashville, is full of sharp observations and easy wit, with several upbeat numbers tailor-made for the dance floor of the nearest honky-tonk. While there are gentler, more personal aspects to it that recall her earlier work, Bright Lights and the Fame displays a newfound brashness, starting with the album’s cover image, in which Michaela Anne sports a bedazzled denim outfit, a vintage find that’s perfect for catching the spotlight.

This show is a co-promotion with Please Please You.

Buy tickets now. Tickets are available from the bar (no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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