Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley first connected in Nashville in 2013, after the two had individually established themselves as formidable players in the bluegrass scene.
“Three crappy gigs in Ohio had a lot to do with it,” Ickes recalls with a laugh as he recounts the story behind the title cut to Living In A Song, the duo’s fourth album together, and their second with Maher producing. “I remember I was sick that weekend, just wore out, and I was sleeping in the car between soundcheck and showtime. It was just a weird experience, and then a couple of weeks later, Trey started singing this song. In the end, I think it’s about persevering. It can suck out here, but this is what you do when you love something, you know?”
Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley - Thanks
To be sure, the journey to where they are now has covered a lot of miles. After moving cross-country from the Bay Area to Nashville in 1992, Ickes emerged as a fleet-fingered demon on the dobro, first as a founding member of bluegrass band Blue Highway, whose early albums were released on Dick Freeland’s Rebel Records, the original home of bluegrass heroes the Seldom Scene. (That band’s Mike Auldridge, a key influence and eventual collaborator with Ickes, is a dobro legend in his own right.) A long-time player of Tim Scheerhorn’s resonator guitars—with his Wechter Scheerhorn 6500 series signature model introduced in 2006—Ickes is renowned for his singularly wide range of expression on lap steel. Folding down-home blues, country, and jazz into his repertoire, he has shared the spotlight with such heavyweights as Merle Haggard, Earl Scruggs, Vince Gill, and Alison Krauss, to name just a few.
Rig Rundown: Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley
Full Rig Details: https://bit.ly/Ickes-HensleyRRSubscribe to PG's Channel: https://bit.ly/SubscribePGYouTubeClick here to check out their new album Living in ...In 2013, he connected with Hensley in Nashville. Then just 22, Hensley had already carved out his own path as a child prodigy, having made his Grand Ole Opry debut with Earl Scruggs himself at the tender young age of 11. Brandishing a stalwart ’54 Martin D-28, he’s a sterling and technically gifted flatpicker whose own contemporaries claim him as an influence, but one of his most endearing traits is undoubtedly his humility. Just ask him to tell the story of how he came to play at the Carter Family Fold for Johnny and June Carter Cash; he still sounds as bowled over by the experience as he must have been when he was a kid.
For Living In A Song, the picking duo worked with producer Brent Maher, with whom they collaborated on 2019’s World Full of Blues.
“Actually, I think we borrowed one of Johnny’s tube mics to record vocals this time,” Hensley says with a smile. In the same train of thought, he name-drops Luther Perkins, whose licks on Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” were an early inspiration, as well as Roy Nichols—the understated but precision flatpicker on Cash’s classic “Tennessee Flat Top Box,” and later known for his long and legendary stint with Merle Haggard’s band. When it comes to knowing his craft, Hensley is still just as much a student as he is an innovator of country, bluegrass, rockabilly, and good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll.
All that experience came to bear on Living In A Song, which has its roots in the songwriting sessions that Ickes and Hensley took up in earnest with Brent Maher at his Blueroom Studios in Berry Hill, just outside of Nashville. “Mostly I come at it as a guitar player,” Hensley says with his usual modesty. “I’m a guitar player first, a singer way out in second somewhere, and a songwriter in distant third, you know? So from my perspective, here’s a guitar thing from me or Rob, and then all these cool melodies that Brent would just come up with, seemingly out of thin air. I mean, we wrote 30 songs or more, so that was a totally different experience, and I think that’s the overlying theme of this record. It’s just us being songwriters. That’s how this one is so much different.”
“I mean, we wrote 30 songs or more, so that was a totally different experience, and I think that’s the overlying theme of this record. It’s just us being songwriters.”—Trey Hensley
Maher has worked with all the major players—his biggest songwriting success was “Why Not Me” by the Judds, but he’s engineered and produced sessions with Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers, Nickel Creek, Shelby Lynne and plenty more. “We had written with Brent a little bit before,” Ickes notes, referring to 2019’s World Full of Blues (which also features guest shots from Vince Gill and Taj Mahal), “but with this record, we definitely made a conscious decision to write most of it. Then when the pandemic came along, it was like okay, we’ve got a little bit more time now. And I wouldn’t say he taught us, but just by working with somebody like that, you learn a lot. I know Trey and I both gained a lot of confidence from the experience, because you just start with nothing, and then after a couple of hours, you’ve got something.”
Rob Ickes' Gear
Ickes has two resonator signature models: one from the Wechter Scheerhorn 6500 series and the other by Byrl Guitars.
Photo by Jim Summaria
Guitars
- Byrl Guitars Rob Ickes Signature Series resonator
- Byrl Guitars flamed-maple shallow-body resonator
- ’40s Oahu Tonemaster lap steel
- 1932 Rickenbacker Frying Pan
- Fishman Nashville Series Resonator Guitar pickups
Amps
- ’65 Fender Deluxe black-panel
Effects
- Fishman Spectrum DI box
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario Medium Bronze (.016–.056)
- BlueChip Reso thumb pick
- Cobalt BP gold-plated finger picks
The album jumps off with the title cut—a slow-building ode that quickly grows inspirational, channeling tastes of Kris Kristofferson and Beggars Banquet-era Rolling Stones. Playing Maher’s full-sounding ’80s Gibson J-200 acoustic (his main guitar throughout most of the album), Hensley captures the feeling of solitude from the first line: “Well, I’ve been on this highway for about eight hours now….” with Ickes following on one of several resonators made by Indiana-based luthier Byrl Murdock (who designed and debuted a signature model with Ickes just last year). When the rest of the band kicks in—Pete Wasner on keyboards, Mike Bub on bass, and John Alvey on drums—and Ickes proceeds to rip a lap-steel solo on a vintage Oahu Tonemaster running through Maher’s ’65 black-panel Fender Deluxe, it all becomes clear what they’re going for: a rich, tone-heavy experience, tracked mostly live in the studio with few overdubs, and harking back to a time when capturing the pure essence of the song was the only goal.
“It wasn’t like they got the tape measure out to see how close the microphone was to my guitar, you know?” Hensley jokes. “But there’s a lot of attention to detail. We even toyed around with the idea of cutting analog, but tape just breaks the budget before you even get started. In the end, it didn’t matter. With Brent and his engineer Charles [Yingling], it just seems like they get great sounds in that room without really thinking about it too much.”
And when they plugged in, the same principles applied. You can hear a taste of the Allman Brothers in the barrelhouse anthem “Moonshine Run,” where Hensley grabs a ’52 Telecaster copy, built by Bristol, Tennessee’s own Chuck Tipton. “I talked Chuck into building me a Tele because he had just taken all these blueprints of a real ’52, or maybe even a ’51 Broadcaster—one of these really killer guitars,” he explains. “It’s been my main electric up until recently, and the Fender Deluxe just crushes the damn thing. I hooked up my wah on the third verse for five seconds just to please myself [laughs]! That amp makes anything sound good.”
“We even toyed around with the idea of cutting analog, but tape just breaks the budget before you even get started. In the end, it didn’t matter.”—Trey Hensley
And once again, it’s this commitment to capturing a sound, always in service to the song, that makes Living In A Song such a compelling document. Whether it’s in the poignant Glenn Campbell-isms of “Backstreets Off Broadway” (with Ickes blending seamlessly on background vocals), or the rapidfire energy that propels their version of the Doc Watson classic “Way Downtown” (a Martin D-28 vehicle for Hensley, with bluegrass ace Stuart Duncan burning up his fiddle in tribute), or the spontaneous mischief that sparked “Louisiana Woman” (a jam inspired from-the-hip by Buck Owens’ famed “Diggy Liggy Lo,” and rounded out by Tim Lauer on accordion), Ickes and Hensley are so sympatico with where they’re headed, at this point it just seems to come naturally.
“Most of our favorite records are very live-in-the-studio,” Ickes observes, “so that’s typically the way we operate. And it goes really quick. I don’t think we’ve taken more than two days to make a record yet.”
Trey Hensley's Gear
Hensley made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, playing with Earl Scruggs, when he was just 11 years old.
Photo by Jim Summaria
Guitars
- ’80s Gibson J-200
- 1954 Martin D-28
- 2021 Martin D-41 standard (on tour)
- 1965 Harmony Sovereign Deluxe H1265
- Preston Thompson acoustic with Gene Parsons B-bender
- Chuck Tipton T-style
- L.R. Baggs Anthem SL pickup
Amps
- ’65 Fender Deluxe black-panel
- Fender Tone Master Deluxe (live)
Effects
- L.R. Baggs Voiceprint DI box
- Boss CE-2W Waza Craft Chorus
- Boss HM-2W Waza Craft Heavy Metal Distortion
- DigiTech Whammy Ricochet
- Electro-Harmonix Micro Q-Tron
- Grace Design ALiX preamp
- Keeley Reverb
Strings & Picks
- D'Addario Nickel Bronze (.013–.056)
- BlueChip TAD60 picks
For his part, Ickes also finds it easier to tap into a deeper level of expression, and some of that has to do with his main instrument. “I was playing Scheerhorns forever, but Byrl’s guitars have just a little more crispness,” he says. “What I like in a really good dobro—and I think a lot of this actually has to do with the way they do the bridge, but there’s a response time. I mean, this guitar is in your face frickin’ immediately. It just seems like it gets to my ear quicker than any other guitar I’ve played. And that’s exciting, you know? It’s like a force or something.”
The excitement becomes visceral on songs like A.P. Carter’s “I’m Working On A Building” and the haunting ballad “I Thought I Saw A Carpenter,” which Ickes wrote for his dying father. His flawless instincts on lap steel are beginning to reach that rarified zone where the chord choices that would ordinarily originate with a pedal-steel guitar have crept into his playing—sometimes unexpectedly, but always with a relaxed sense of intention that still keeps him grounded.
“Most of our favorite records are very live-in-the-studio, so that’s typically the way we operate. I don’t think we’ve taken more than two days to make a record yet.”—Rob Ickes
There’s one player he cites as a key influence. “Jerry Byrd, man,” he says without hesitation. “He had this way of playing that was like a voice, you know? Obviously on a slide instrument, the pitch is very critical, and very difficult, and he just never missed it. It came from his soul, and at the same time he was just a great technician. You never heard the bar; you never heard the pick. All you heard was the music.”
For Living In A Song, as the title suggests, Rob and Trey explored their songwriting abilities more earnestly than on previous records.
Photo by Jeff Fasano
“Technically on the dobro, we don’t usually give a lot of vibrato,” he continues, “but he did, and it didn’t sound nervous. To me, that opened up a whole new way of playing using my left hand that I had never considered, because I didn’t want that nervous sound. And I honestly don’t know how he does it, but it’s kind of rubbed off on me. Somehow I’m able to do it, and it just sounds more in tune.”
Of course, the act of songwriting itself describes an ongoing journey toward self-discovery—the “long and winding road” that can lead to enlightenment, or wisdom, or redemption, or any exalted state you can imagine when you’re tapping into what Harlan Howard called “three chords and the truth.” As if to accentuate the point, Hensley takes the album’s concluding song, “Thanks,” as an example of the serendipity that can unfold so suddenly when you attune yourself to what’s right in front of you.
“I mean, this guitar is in your face frickin’ immediately. It just seems like it gets to my ear quicker than any other guitar I’ve played.”—Rob Ickes
“A friend of mine, Lyle Brewer, had written the melody,” he recalls, “and he asked me if I might want to write something to it. And honestly, it just sat there for a bit, because I didn’t listen to it with enough intention to really focus on it, but the title of the song as he had written it was ‘Thanks.’ And of course I’m a big Tom T. Hall fan, and as soon as I heard it, it sounded like something he would have written. It just came to me and it was done. It was done before it ever began, really. I feel like that song always existed, and I just stumbled on it, you know?”
When the duo convened with Maher at the studio to record it, lightning struck again. “It was just us, me and Rob and Brent, sitting in the studio with a few mics up, with no real intention other than we’re gonna get this down as a demo. And I remember Brent—you can hear it. He picks up a guitar about a verse in, and starts hitting the back of it, as a percussion thing, you know? We got to listening to it, and Brent told us, ‘What do you think if we just use this version? It has a vibe to it, and it’s silly to try it again if we’ve already got it.’ And I love it, because that’s the version that made the record. Every time I hear Brent pick up that guitar, it just makes me smile.”
YouTube It
Ickes and Hensley perform the title track from Living In A Song, with Trey leading with his rich vocal and acoustic textures before Rob enters with his signature resonator twang and harmonies.
Since their debut, Before the Sun Goes Down, in 2014, Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley have made a name for themselves as some of the hottest country and bluegrass players in the business. As individuals, their credits range from Willie Nelson to Earl Scruggs to Merle Haggard—and as a duo, they’ve toured and recorded with artists including Tommy Emmanuel, Taj Mahal, Jorma Kaukonen & Hot Tuna, Luther Dickinson, and Molly Tuttle. It’s likely their forthcoming full-length release, Living in a Song, will only bolster their already impressive reputation.
Out on February 10th, Living in a Song is a new collection of two covers and 10 originals that were inspired by Ickes and Hensley’s life on the road. They collaborated with long-time producer Brent Maher (Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson) along with some award-winning songwriters to compose a total of 40 songs, which were then trimmed down to the resulting selection. That final cut of material leans into a classic country sound, with some Americana and bluegrass thrown in.
Along with the aforementioned credits, Ickes and Hensley have long been established, separately, as formidable musicians. Ickes has been International Bluegrass Music Association Dobro Player of the Year an incredible 15 times, and Hensley made his debut performance at the Grand Ole Opry at just 11 years old. In other words, the two have been around the block, and especially know their way around dobros and flattop acoustics.
Earlier this month, PG’s John Bohlinger met up with the duo at 3Sirens Studio in Nashville, where they played some mind-blowing music, and gave a rundown of some of their favorite guitars and gear.
Click here to pre-save Living in a Song which releases on Friday, Feb. 10.
Brought to you by D’Addario Humidipak.
Mind-Bending Bender
This dreadnought was built for Trey by the Oregon-based Preston Thompson Guitars in 2018. It’s the company’s D-MA model, with sinker mahogany back and sides and an Adirondack spruce top. But what truly makes the guitar special is its StringBender B-bender, which was built into the model by former Byrd and StringBender founder, Gene Parsons, himself. It’s also equipped with an LR Baggs Lyric. As for accessories, Trey uses D’Addario Nickel Bronze .013-.056 strings on all of his guitars, Blue Chip TAD60 picks, a Dunlop Blues Bottle slide, and a D’Addario Rich Robinson slide.
The Guts
Here's a tight shot of the inner mechanisms that engage the B-Bender.
Fighting Spirit
Trey’s favorite guitar is his 1954 Martin D-28. “I’ve had this one for about 20 years now,” he says, “I think I’m the third owner of it.” The first owner wore the neck down so that “it’s real skinny and gets super fat right at the fifth fret.” He brings his D-28 to most of his recording sessions, and while it also has an LR Baggs Lyric, “This guitar does not want to be plugged in at all,” he says, “It just fights back.” It has Brazilian rosewood back and sides; as for the top wood, “Anybody’s guess is as good as mine.”
Ugly Duckling
Found at Fanny’s House of Music in Nashville, this 1965 Harmony Sovereign Deluxe H1265 makes a bit of a statement with its prominent pickguard and mustache bridge. Or, as Trey puts it, “It’s possibly the ugliest guitar I’ve ever seen.” He calls the jumbo-bodied model his “Taj Mahal guitar,” as the bluesman requested it when Trey and Rob joined him for a few performances late last year. “I really like it,” Trey says, smiling, “It’s the guitar that shouldn’t be.”
No. 610
“This is probably one of my other favorites,” Trey says of his 2015 Wayne Henderson dreadnought—the guitar maker’s 610th build. Its specced to a Martin D-18, with mahogany back and sides. The Virginia builder famously built a few models for Eric Clapton, and notoriously has a very, very long wait list—which is why Trey was so afraid to put a pickup in it and take it out on the road after he got it. And then…. “The first night I took it out, it wasn’t on the strap button good, and it fell and hit the concrete floor. This piece here was split,” he says, gesturing to an area on the top plate. Thankfully, he was able to get it repaired. “It sounded really good before I dropped it, but it sounded about a million times better after I dropped it,” he says, “So, the moral of the story is: Drop your guitar.”
Before the War
Another D-18 copy, this 2017 Pre-War Guitars Co. model has mahogany back and sides, and is outfitted with an LR Baggs Anthem SL. It bears Taj Mahal’s signature on the front, and Trey’s on the back. The latter choice was Trey’s way of imitating Earl Scruggs, since he saw Scruggs had done the same to a couple of his instruments when he performed with him as a kid.
Black Dove
Next, a 2022 Gibson Elvis Dove, is “probably the only oddball acoustic I have,” says Trey. “I wasn’t planning on flatpicking on this thing, but I’ve already used it for some sessions.” Its maple back and sides make it the perfect choice to emulate the J-200 he borrowed from his producer for a country record he and Rob just finished recording.
Tried and True
Last in the acoustic queue is Trey’s 2021 Martin D-41. “This one’s been my main guitar for about a year now,” he says. It’s equipped with an LR Baggs Anthem SL, and has a bit of a lower setup compared to his other guitars—but with medium gauge strings, he says, it doesn’t buzz.
Loud and Clear
When Trey isn’t going DI through his LR Baggs Voiceprint, he runs his acoustics through his Fishman Loudbox Artist.
Go-To Gibson
Trey’s go-to electric is his Gibson Custom Shop 1958 Les Paul Reissue VOS, which he got in 2008. He keeps this guitar and his other electrics strung with D’Addario NYXL .010-.046 strings, which can be a bit jarring to his fretting hand when switching over from the .013s on his acoustics. “It takes a minute to not rip the neck off,” he says.
Byrd Build
This 2017 Parsons StringBender T-style was one of Gene Parsons’ early prototypes when he started building guitars.
Headshot For the Headstock
Here's Gene Parsons riding proudly on his 2017 T-style build for Trey Hensley.
To the T
The newest addition to Trey’s electric arsenal is this Berly Guitars Telecaster, built with Rocketfire ’60s-style pickups and “frets basically as big as my Les Paul.”
Trey Hensley’s Pedalboards (Acoustic)
Trey’s acoustic pedalboard is set up with a D’Addario tuner, an EHX Nano Q-Tron Envelope Filter, a Boss CE-2W Waza Craft Chorus, a Boss HM-2W Waza Craft Heavy Metal, a DigiTech Whammy Ricochet, an EarthQuaker Devices Ghost Echo Reverb, a Grace Design Alix preamp, and an LR Baggs Voiceprint. Power comes from a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2. It might be a bit unconventional for him to have two DIs, but he says he uses the Alix “for some EQ and mainly a boost; I’m bypassing it as a DI.” And, referring to the Voiceprint, he says, “If I can only take one pedal, it’s going to be that.”
Trey Hensley’s Pedalboards (Electric)
“I’ll preface it by saying, I don’t know what I’m doing,” admits Trey. On his electric pedalboard, he goes into his Dunlop Zakk Wylde Wah, then his D’Addario tuner—“You want that, after the wah,”—then into an EHX Micro Q-Tron, a Keeley Super Phat Mod, a Keeley Sweet Spot Johnny Hiland Super Drive, a JHS PackRat, an EHX J Mascis Ram’s Head Big Muff Pi, a Keeley Dark Side, and an MXR EVH Phase 90.
Ol’ Reliable
Trey has several amps for acoustic and electric. Today he was using a Fender ’68 Custom Princeton Reverb Reissue for his electric.
Bold and Byrly
“When you play a really good dobro, it’s in your face super fast,” says Rob Ickes, describing his main axe, a Byrl Guitars Rob Ickes Signature Series resonator—an instrument distinguished by its half-and-half ebony and curly maple fretboard. It’s equipped with a Fishman Nashville Reso Series pickup, which Ickes says is probably the first pickup that he’s used that’s nearly 100 percent faithful to the dobro sound. He uses D’Addario Nickel Bronze strings, Blue Chip thumb picks, and Bob Perry gold-plated fingerpicks, as well as a Scheerhorn bar slide.
Scheer Invention
This resonator guitar, made by Tim Scheerhorn, has Indian rosewood back and sides and a spruce top. According to Ickes, Scheerhorn “was kind of the Stradivarius of the dobro.” He was the first to start using solid woods—as opposed to the earlier use of plywood—and put sound posts inside the body, like those in a violin. “He also does a little baffle that helps force the sound out of the sound holes,” explains Ickes.
Maple Flames
The second Byrl resonator Ickes shared with us is made from flame maple, giving it that distinctive look, and is actually the first guitar he got from Byrl. He tunes it to an open G chord, which he recently discovered is the original Hawaiian tuning. It has a Beard Legend spun cone made of an aluminum alloy and named after Mike Auldridge.
One Man’s Trash
Ickes found this 1930s dobro at a music store owned by a friend outside of Franklin, Tennessee. It’s made with a stamped cone. “It’s a little bit garbage can, in a good way,” he says, “I’ll use it on sessions if I want a trashier sound.” He normally keeps it in a lower tuning, such as open D.
Family Heirloom
This 1927 Montgomery Ward guitar has a story as intriguing as its sound. It belonged to Ickes’ grandfather, who was a fiddle player: He discovered it one day in the attic of his family home. “This one spoke to me right out of the box,” he shares,” It had that funk—times 10.” It sports signatures from Taj Mahal and Merle Haggard, the latter of whom Ickes recorded a bluegrass album with back in 2006. “I take this to a lot of sessions, in case they need that funky kind of dirt-road sound,” he explains.
Let Slide
“This next one is a more modern version of that,” Ickes says of another model, a Wayne Henderson guitar which he says is the first slide guitar Henderson built. “I just said, ‘Do what you do, but raise the action a bit here at the nut.’” It has a Fishman Nashville Series Reso pickup which Ickes has go into a Fishman Aura Spectrum DI.
A Flash in the Pan
One of the most interesting guitars in Ickes’ collection is his 1932 Rickenbacker Frying Pan, an electric lap steel that was one of the first ever of its kind to be created. “It just cracks me up how they nailed it right out of the box,” he comments. Its single knob is a combination of tone and volume—“As you move to the right, it gets brighter and louder. As you move to the left it gets quieter.”
Silver Surfer
As you can tell, several of the guitars that Ickes brought on this Rig Rundown are from the 1930s, including this Rickenbacker lap steel, nicknamed the “Silver Surfer.” Its mirror-like fretboard made it difficult for Ickes to see the frets when playing live, so he had them covered in red tape, which make them stand out much better.
Black and White
The last of Ickes’ guitars is another 1930s Rickenbacker lap steel, which he fondly refers to as the “Panda,” due to its black-and-white decor. He loves how it sounds, but admits, “This is great if you don’t leave the house [with it],” as it’s very heavy and doesn’t really stay in tune.
Dulcet Dairy Tones
Despite how Ickes typically favors vintage amps, he’s fond of this newer 20-watt Milkman Creamer, which he bought with a lap steel from a friend in California after hearing the two in combination. It has all the vintage vibe without the hassle of old amps.
Li’l Champ
Another amp in Ickes’ collection is his ’50s Fender Champ.
Small Yet Mighty
A third amp that Ickes shared with us is a vintage 1930s Rickenbacker.
Rob Ickes’ Pedalboards (Dobro)
Ickes has two separate pedal boards for his dobro and for his lap steel. Both boards are powered with separate Truetone 1 Spots. He keeps things simple on his dobro board, which includes a Fishman Aura Spectrum DI, an MXR Eddie Van Halen Phase 90, a Walrus Audio Mako Series R1 Reverb, and a ’80s era Boss DM-2 Delay.
Rob Ickes' Lap Steel Pedalboard
The simple setup trend continues with his lap steel pedalboard, which is made up of another four pedals: an EXH Micro Q-Tron, a Keeley Super Phat Mod, an MXR Phase 90, and a Keeley Omni Reverb.
Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley
World Full of BluesIf you love the sound of white-knuckle flatpicking and barking squareneck resonator, you’ll flip over World Full of Blues, the third album by Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley. Dueling like Afghan kite fighters, and backed by upright bass, drums, percussion, B-3, and horns, the two acoustic virtuosos work the intersecting lines of blues, bluegrass, and traditional country while adding fresh moves of their own.
Fifteen-time IBMA Dobro Player of the Year, Ickes is a lap-slide monster with a silvery, singing tone and impeccable intonation. Drawing on such giants as Doc Watson, Clarence White, Tony Rice, David Grier, and Bryan Sutton, Hensley plays flattop with the ferocity of a hangry junkyard dog. He’s also a gifted singer who can bend notes and wrangle words like the late George Jones and Merle Haggard—clearly two of his vocal influences. Tired of country pop? This sonic moonshine will set you straight.
Must-hear tracks: “Brown-Eyed Women,” “World Full of Blues” with Taj Mahal
The trailer for World Full of Blues features blues legend Taj Mahal, who sings on the title track.
