FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - August 11 - Carnival Music is pleased to announce the release of Hailey Whitters' debut album, Black Sheep, available everywhere October 2. This 10 song collection, produced by Derek Wells, is full of honest and biting lyrics, proving her place in the future of country music. Black Sheep is a record with the potential to appeal to both the die-hard John Prine fan, as well as a person who swears that country music hasn't been the same since the Dixie Chicks left the scene.
It depicts the highs and lows of love and loss from Whitters' straight-forward, tell it like it is point of view.
Whitters hails from Shueyville, Iowa, population just shy of 600. "It's such a little town. It's getting bigger, but we don't even have a post office," she says. "We have two bars, a wine cellar, and a church."
"I took my first trip to Nashville when I was 16 and fell in love," Whitters continues. "I immediately knew I wanted to move here." A year later, she did. She also enrolled in college, and paid her proverbial dues as a nanny, waitress, and salon receptionist before signing with left-of-center publishing lighthouse
Carnival Music in 2012.
In her late teens and early 20s, Whitters performed almost exclusively around Nashville, starting with dive bars and storied Lower Broad honky-tonks, singing cover songs for tourists and tips. At local writers' nights, she began ditching others' songs in favor of her own. The town noticed: Music Row critic
Robert K. Oermann praised her, urging, "Keep your ears on this newcomer," while the
Nashville Scene declared Whitters "summons the space-country aesthetics" of 90's Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson.
It's been an exciting year already for Whitters' who signed with Agency for the Preforming Arts (
APA) in May, a booking agency that has kept her busy crisscrossing the country, opening for a broad range of acts ranging from Randy Houser to Chris Knight to Corey Smith. In June, Whitters' team got word that
Martina McBride recorded the solo-written "Low All Afternoon", a ballad that explores an unhealthy relationship with grace. On
September 29 in
Nashville, Whitters' will release
Black Sheep at
The Basement with the studio musicians who played on the record as her backing band.
In the meantime, she will continue to road-dog every highway, bringing this poignant, well-written record to anyone with a taste for the truth.
Track listing:
1. Long Come To Jesus (Hailey Whitters, Matraca Berg)
2. City Girl (Adam Wright, Shannon Wright)
3. Late Bloomer (Hailey Whitters)
4. Black Sheep (Hailey Whitters, Adam Wright)
5. Low All Afternoon (Hailey Whitters)
6. One More Hell (Hailey Whitters)
7. Heartbreaker (Hailey Whitters, Adam Wright)
8. People Like You (Hailey Whitters, Kelsey Anna)
9. Pocket Change (Mando Saenz, Shelly Colvin)
10. Get Around (Hailey Whitters, Stephanie Lambring)
Tour:
August 21 - Ames, IA - Outlaws Bar
August 22 - Okoboji, IA - Arnold's Park
August 27 - Dallas, TX - Granada Theatre
August 28 - Beaumont, TX - Jerry Nelson's Hill Country
August 29 - Goliad, TX - Schroeder Dance Hall
August 30 - Fredericksburg, TX - Luckenbach Dancehall
September 18 - Waynesville, NC - The Strand at 38 Main
September 19 - Winston-Salem, NC - Muddy Creek Cafe
September 25 - Louisville, KY - The Tin Roof
September 26 - Lexington, KY - The Tin Roof
September 29 - Nashville, TN - The Basement (release show)
October 17 - Chicago, IL - Joe's Bar
