Today via Hot Shot Records/Thirty Tigers, Delbert McClinton releases Outdated Emotion, the 27th studio album from the 81-year-old legendary blues and soul rocker. The record marks a full-circle moment for the “Texas Treasure” (Houston Press) as he celebrates his coming-of-age musical heroes and performs the country, jazz, blues, and swing tunes that have shaped his career. Co-produced with Kevin McKendree at The Rock House in Franklin, TN, the Outdated Emotion tracklist includes a Ray Charles tribute, Hank Williams' country classics (complete with steel guitar and fiddle) and Little Richard’s 1956 rock and roll ballad “Long Tall Sally.” The 16-song collection marks a return to McClinton’s roots and offers listeners a backstage pass to some of the most significant musical moments in American history. He delivers every song “with his trademark charming twang, never pandering to listeners, but instead sharing his joy with them” (Blues Blast Magazine). Now over six decades into his chart-topping career, which has included solo hits as well as collaborations with Emmylou Harris, Etta James, George Strait and even The Beatles, McClinton revealed that “what he really wants to do is make people dance.” Outdated Emotion certainly accomplishes that goal while introducing the next generation to the music that influenced him. Ultimately it proves why he’s earned the title of “the Godfather of Americana Music” (Rolling Stone).
Listen to Outdated Emotion here: https://orcd.co/outdatedemotion
“I’ve always wanted to do an album of the songs that influenced me the most. It’s important music from another time. There is a whole generation, maybe two generations now, who don’t know this music. My whole idea here was to show them how it was and how we got here. Hank Williams, Jimmy Reed, Lloyd Price, Ray Charles. These songs take me to my youth. They are good if not better now than they were then, and they were great then. They are songs people should just get to hear.” - Delbert McClinton
From his early Fort Worth days to becoming one of the most celebrated guests on Saturday Night Live and Austin City Limits, McClinton was among the first to lay the groundwork for the collision of Texas and Tennessee music, creating his own genre in a melting pot of American culture that would inspire generations to come. To that end, Glide Magazine recently praised “his absorption and processing of blues and R&B influences highlights an astute exercise in musicology.” McClinton’s band brings the same sense of nostalgia and appreciation for 20th century American music as they reacquaint listeners with the tunes that have shaped the sounds of today (and a few songs McClinton either wrote or co-wrote himself). The album features guitarists Chris Scruggs (Loretta Lynn, Kacey Musgraves) and Jimmy Stewart (Rascal Flatts, Dolly Parton), “slap” bass player Mark Winchester (Emmylou Harris’ Nash Ramblers), Stuart Duncan on fiddle (Alan Jackson, George Strait), Danny Flowers on harmonica (Eric Clapton), Jim Hoke on sax (Paul McCartney), and background vocalists Wendy Moten (The Voice, season 21) and Vicki Hampton (Thomas Rhett, Mickey Guyton).
