Alex Jordan Begs For Mercy On Steve Berlin-Produced 'Saving Grace'

Musical Swiss army knife Alex Jordan makes a lively plea for forgiveness on new single “Saving Grace,” out today.

With a robust horn section and wailing vocals, the track arrives with a spirited music video that tells the story of a man desperately trying to win back his girlfriend any way he knows how, directed by award-winning duo Neilson Hubbard & Joshua Britt (John Prine, Jason Isbell). “Saving Grace” is from Jordan's upcoming album Queen Kerosene (out 3/8 via ALP), produced by four-time GRAMMY-winner Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and mastered by seven-time GRAMMY-winner Jim Scott (The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Sting).

The track was featured at Americana Highways who praised it as “spacious, easygoing and disarming with the upswell of the horns and Alex on piano, as he simply asks, ultimately, for the warm embrace of unconditional love. It should always just be that simple.”  

“Only a few weeks before we solidified plans to make the record, I recall sitting in my bedroom on a cool night and jamming aimlessly on my Taylor until a verse appeared,” shared Jordan about writing the track.

“I worked out the remaining parts of the song over the next few nights. I spent perhaps the most time on this song with lyrical edits, working with Kevin Russell (Shinyribs) who served as my lyrical spirit guide for much of the record. Closing the record out with the strong horn section and wailing vocals felt incredibly satisfying. I knew from the first take that this record was going to be a blast to make.” 

Queen Kerosene was recorded at The Finishing School in Austin, Texas with a band of Austin-based musicians — including harmony singer Carrie Rodriguez and accordion player Josh Baca (the protégé of Norteño icon Flaco Jiménez).

Jordan has already shared the album's incendiary title track and its nomadic music video, also directed by Hubbard & Britt. Along with second single “Emily,” the tracks have attracted early attention from Guitar World, American Blues Scene, Magnet and Glide Magazine who praised Jordan's “revelatory musical instincts of The Band alongside the breezy California harmonies of Jackson Browne.” 

Jordan and Berlin captured the album's songs in a series of live takes, and the result is a quintessentially American LP composed of barn burners, piano ballads, Americana anthems and adventurous explorations of organic roots music. Like the artists and songwriters the record pays homage to – namely Buck Owens, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Hayes Carll and Robert Hunter – Jordan's new music is timeless in its sound and its songwriting, and his songs tell the stories of the people who have, who do and who always will inhabit this land we call home.

Jordan may be a fresh face when it comes to his solo career, but he's spent the better part of the past decade playing with West Coast bands like Midnight North, fronted by Grahame Lesh. His ability to play guitar, piano and Hammond B3 organ landed him onstage with Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Peter Rowan, becoming a fixture at Lesh's Bay Area music venue Terrapin Crossroads. Now with a kaleidoscopic LP that pulls from soul, Tex-Mex, groove-driven R&B, Americana, jazz, honky-tonk and heartland rock & roll, Jordan has developed a sound that is entirely his own.

Photographer Credit: Lauren Bettino

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