Jerry Douglas to Release New Album 'The Set'
The album will be available this Friday.
By: Josh Sharpe Sep. 16, 2024
The highly acclaimed musician, JERRY DOUGLAS, is not just the preeminent master of the resophonic guitar—he’s also a 16x GRAMMY Award-winning recording artist, band leader, producer, composer, and a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station since 1998, among many other accolades. This Friday (9/20), the American music luminary will release The Set, his first album in seven years. The 11-track album, featuring five new offerings and six revitalized songs from his catalog, will be available via Nolivian Records across all DSPs, as well as in physical formats including CDs and 180-gram vinyl.
The lead single from The Set, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” finds The Jerry Douglas Band delivering a poignant rendition of the Beatles’ 1968 classic. With DOUGLAS on dobro, Daniel Kimbro on bass, Christian Sedelmyer on fiddle, and Mike Seal on guitar bring raw talent to the forefront, breathing new life into this timeless track.
“I love how easy it was to play the song,” says DOUGLAS, the 30x International Bluegrass Music Association Award recipient. “It just lays perfectly for the dobro. It gives you all the latitude you need to play the whole song from end to end, in different octaves. That melody always got me, but I never tried to play it. And when I did, it was like, ‘Wow! Why haven’t I done this before?’”
On August 16, DOUGLAS released the second look at the album, “Something You Got.” Originally written and performed by R&B artist Christopher Kenner in 1961, “Something You Got” gets a fresh take from DOUGLAS. This track reimagines the 2012 collaboration between DOUGLAS and Eric Clapton on DOUGLAS’ Traveler album, now with DOUGLAS taking the lead vocals. Lighter and more upbeat, this revamped version serves as one of the many highlights from The Set.
Relix raved: “the song finds Douglas in the driver’s seat as he takes viewers into the realm of live performance, a pinnacle of his stardom… Douglas embraces a lighter, increasingly upbeat tone, which helps establish the strength of the album’s sonic focal point as pure acoustic splendor.”
For the new album, DOUGLAS also turned to his bandmates for material, including Mike Seal’s “Renee,” Christian Sedelmyer’s “Deacon Waltz,” and Daniel Kimbro’s “Loyston.” In addition, the four musicians collaborated on “The Fifth Season,” a concerto commissioned by the FreshGrass Foundation. The Set tracklisting concludes with two instrumentals, “Pushed Too Far” and “Sir Aly B.” “When people leave,” shares DOUGLAS, “they have a certain song in their head. And we always play ‘Sir Aly B’ last as the final encore. That’s the last thing people hear, so I wanted that to be there, too.”
“I’m proud of it. I’ve left no stone unturned,” finalizes DOUGLAS about The Set. “I’ve been producing records for a long time, so I really, really put on that hat for this record. Usually, I like instrumentalists to have free rein in whatever they do. It’s the way they speak. If anybody had an idea, we chased it down to the end. I feel like it’s really finished. I’m really happy with the outcome of this whole experience.”
TRACK LISTING FOR THE SET:
“Gone to Fortingall”
“Renee”
“What Might Have Been” featuring Aoife O’Donovan
“From Ankara to Ismir”
“Something You Got”
“Deacon Waltz”
“The Fifth Season”
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
“Loyston”
“Pushed Too Far”
“Sir Aly B”
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