Erin Enderlin – World Without Willie
Established Nashville singer/songwriter Erin Enderlin ( cuts include “Last Call” by LeeAnn Womack and “Monday Morning Church“ by Alan Jackson) recently hit 10,000 fans on Facebook and what better way for an artist to celebrate this milestone than by releasing a brand new single?
Her ever increasing following no doubt owes much to her own incredible album “Whiskeytown Crier” which is one of my favourite albums of the past few months. Erin’s music will definitely appeal to those of you who are fans of trad country which has influenced her from her childhood, and she pays tribute to one of her biggest heroes Willie Nelson in her new single release “World Without Willie” which we included in our New Music Friday shouts last week and which has been added to our Spotify playlist.
Erin’s love of his music began when she was growing up in Arkansas. When she was just four years old her Grandpa gave her a Waylon and Willie album, and “ Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” became an instant favourite with the young Erin. “On The Road Again” was the first song she learned to play on the piano!
Her inability to even contemplate a world without his musical legacy forms the backbone of this new song, a cleverly crafted waltz which incorporates many Willie Nelson related references and song titles. Among my personal favourite lines is “In a world without Willie, Patsy Cline wouldn’t be Crazy”!.
Co-written with Leslie Satcher, Alex Klein and Tara Thompson (who also guests on vocal harmonies) it is a great example of an all female collaboration. In addition Alex produced the track and plays “everything” according to Erin……everything that is apart from harmonica which is credited to Mickey Raphael who has been a member of Willies band for almost three decades!
I’ve heard Erin tell of how she had the privilege of opening for her idol on a string of tour dates across the States, and she joked that basically it amounted to her getting paid to listen to him play every night!
CMT, the biggest country music network Stateside, had exclusivity on the song’s accompanying video on release day last Friday, but we can now share it with you……and some “ video trivia”, all the Willie albums you see Erin and Tara looking at are from Erin’s own collection, and the cute dog who makes a cameo appearance belongs to co-writer Alex Klein and is called Patsy ( get it??!!)
So, here you are, see how many song titles you can identify………..and of course you can download and stream the track in all the usual places!
Article written by Lesley Hastings (twitter.com/lesleyhastings)
