Following hot on the heels of the release of Buried Loot, Demos from the House of Cash and Outlaw Era, ‘73-‘78, legendary Nashville song-man Loney Hutchins is giving fans a fresh look at his life and music that came after leaving House of Cash to focus on his own music. Rounding up a band including Dolly Parton’s then live rhythm section (Paul Urhig and Tom Jones) and a searing hot electric lead guitarist (Harry Robinson), Hutchins hit the studio for what would become his only proper album recorded during this time; Appalachia.
Fast forward to 2017, when Hutchins’s son, Loney John Hutchins—a long-time independent producer and musician in Nashville—began archiving the many hours of 40-something-year-old tapes from the Hutchins archives. Loney John discovered never-released tracks from the original Appalachia sessions, and—based on the strength of recordings on Buried Loot… which Billboard called a “treasure trove”—it only made sense to restore Appalachia to its originally intended compilation and release it as an endpoint to his father’s body of 70’s material. And on March 4th, Appalachia will be available to the public again, this time in a fully restored, remastered, and original tracklist format. A perfectly preserved-in-time neon-country ripper, Appalachia is one that’ll encourage any and all listeners to crank the volume, roll the windows down, and head out into the country.
Whereas Buried Loot… runs the sonic gamut of Tennessee Three to Flying Burrito Bros., Appalachia lands bolder and heavier, ready for FM radio of 1979. There are moments of high fidelity rock swagger a’ la Steve Miller Band on tracks like “When You Fall In Love,” country choogle on “Son of No Good Man,” like Eddie Rabbit might’ve recorded, and stacked electric bluegrass harmonies on the lead-off track, “Timbertree,” which Hutchins released today as a surprise first taste of Appalachia.
Fans can hear “Timbertree” right now at this link and pre-order or pre-save Appalachia ahead of its March 4th release right here. Fans can also catch Hutchins live in action at The Basement East on March 10th for the official album release show. Tickets can be found here. For more information or to listen to the recently released Buried Loot…, please visit loneyhutchins.country today.
Appalachia Tracklist:
01 Timbertree
02 I’ve Got the Feeling
03 When You Fall In Love
04 Son of a No Good Man
05 Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t So
06 We Got It All
07 Loving You
08 Mountain Eyes
09 Appalachia
10 You Still Have That Look In Your Eyes
More About Appalachia: Loney and the band recorded the entirety of the album in just 3 days at Lee Hazen’s Studio By the Pond, a north Nashville studio very hot at the time, having hosted greats like Johnny Cash, Dr. Hook, Mickey Newbury, and many others. At the helm was engineer, Jack “Stack-a-Track” Grochmal, who also boasted production credits with greats like John Prine, Nanci Griffith, and John Hartford. Though the group left the studio with a complete 10 track album, its release was delayed nearly 3 years as Hutchins shopped it to various A&R reps. The original 2-inch session tapes had a note taped to them from an Elektra rep reading, “*Good* band, too folkie.” Hutchins found himself with an album too country for LA and too rock for Nashville. He eventually decided to go the independent route and self-released in the early ’80s, replacing two of the original session cuts with newer ballads aimed at the adult-contemporary pop-country crossover sound of the time. This cassette was the launch of what became his Appalachia Record Co. imprint, which released a handful of country-pop singles in the mid-80’s charting on both the Billboard and Cashbox charts.
