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Click here to check out the Friday 12/5 Show

This December, Hayes Carll will take the stage with his band, The Gulf Coast Orchestra, for his annual run of Christmas shows. What’s become a favorite tradition for Hayes is a chance to share songs, swap stories, and spread a little holiday cheer with fans. These shows are about music, laughter, and being together at the year's end.

Hayes Carll

Hayes Carll isn’t preaching or teaching. He’s not interested in telling the rest of us what to do or think. But he is charting out a personal guide for his life, quieting the noise, and sitting with his real voice – the one that’s candid, consistent, and often inconvenient.

We’re Only Human is Carll’s tenth album. Like his best lyrics, it is also an understated masterpiece, an honest snapshot of one man’s confrontation and delight with humanity’s biggest and most intimate questions. Where do we find forgiveness for ourselves and grace for others? How do we hold on to peace of mind and stay present? What can we—and should we––trust? And how can we moor ourselves to, well, ourselves, in the midst of confusing, trying times? We’re Only Human offers audiences the chance to listen to Carll as he listens to himself.

“I’ve lived outside of myself for so long,” Carll admits. “Distractions, fear, anxiety, insecurity, and the complexity of being human in this world have so often pulled me away from being present or at peace.”

“I feel like there’s been a voice riding shotgun all my life, pushing me to do better, but I’ve struggled to listen to it,” Carll says. “The idea behind this record was to do the personal work I needed to do, then codify those lessons in song to serve as sort of breadcrumbs to get me back on the trail if, and inevitably when, I get lost again.”

Carll is more than two decades into a celebrated career. Praise from places such as Pitchfork and the New York Times––the latter of which yoked Carll’s ability to tackle tough issues with wry humor to Bob Dylan––punctuate a resume that includes Americana Music Awards and a Grammy nomination. His songs aren’t safe, but many of Nashville’s stars have recorded them, including Kenny Chesney, Lee Ann Womack, and Brothers Osborne. As a solo recording artist, Carll has long-since established himself as one of Americana’s most-played––and most loved––voices. His warm but crackling vocals, wit, and heart dance through wordplay that’s always clever, and never too precious. Through it all, whenever Carll points a finger, it’s most often at himself.

As We’re Only Human collects moments of Carll figuring out how to be with himself, the songs feel forthright, hopeful, and timely. In today’s onslaught of instant gratification, rage-baiting headlines, glorified intolerance, and falling empathy, the record is a startling outlier: an artist’s raw, real-life effort to live well—both with himself and others. Carll embraces private epiphanies, and shares them with the world, allowing them to unfold for all to see and share.

Of course, We’re Only Human is also art. So while appreciating the motivation and compelling themes driving it will underpin the listener’s experience, Carll’s album also matters because of the sheer brilliance of its execution. These are songs composed by a writer’s writer, wielding his considerable skill with precision and beauty.

The album’s title track unfolds with plaintive piano and a mantle of grace. Carll sings, with a calming sincerity, “We’ll do most anything to avoid the pain / Hiding our hearts and casting the blame / 6,000 tongues, but we’re all the same / Ain’t no need to carry that shame / ‘Cause we’re only human.”

Hard-won minutes of quiet clarity inspired some of the record’s most beautiful moments. Accented by bright mandolin and soft, simple percussion, “Stay Here a While” captures a peaceful reprieve from a racing mind. “I remember sitting on the couch, looking out the window, watching the birds do their thing,” Carll says with a laugh. “I got lost in their lives for a moment, and it was such a wonderful feeling because my mind is always going in circles, seeking excitement, and frankly, just thinking about myself. I enjoyed the peace I felt in that moment and I thought, this is lovely and I’d like to stay in this place.” Carll shared that takeaway with MC Taylor, aka Hiss Golden Messenger, who not only could relate, but helped finish the song.

“High” offers another invitation to stop and breathe. Opening with a solo horn, flute, and stripped down piano, the track is lovely and sincere, with Carll’s signature humor hovering comfortably nearby. There are also times when Carll’s sharp wit comes roaring to the foreground. “Progress of Man (Bitcoin and Cattle)” sends up society’s disorienting––and conflicting––forces, while “Good People (Thank Me)” is a masterclass in comedic timing, stubborn humanism, and the untapped potential of gratitude.

A dogged insistence on acceptance, both of one’s self and others, courses through the album— as does Carll’s determination to hold himself accountable. “If I’m judging others, then I’m not having to look at myself,” Carll says. “I’m flawed as hell, judgmental, and critical of myself and those around me. That’s a loop that feeds itself. But I figure If I can look at myself clear-eyed and acknowledge my own shortcomings, it might help me have some grace and acceptance for myself and others.”

It’s that sort of harmonious duality––embracing one’s self and confessing one’s own mistakes––that solidifies the record’s big-hearted honesty. “The creative process was in large part a self-therapy session. I don’t think that would work if I was only looking at everyone else’s issues,” Carll says.

A moving series of grounding vignettes, realizations, and self-love roll through “What I Will Be,” as Carll promises to not compromise himself to fit in. A slow-burning, blues-tinged standout, “I Got Away with It” is painful and gorgeous. Brimming with hope, “One Day” balances the work Carll sees as necessary with the certainty that satisfaction, contentment, and peace are reachable by trusting in yourself and the universe.

Featuring a parade of Carll’s longtime friends, album closer “May I Never” is a plea to himself. As Ray Wylie Hubbard, Shovels & Rope, Darrell Scott, Nicole Atkins, and The Band of Heathens’ Gordy Quist and Ed Jurdi each take verses, listeners are swept up in a resolute promise to keep after good. “It brings up a lot for me when I hear them singing those lines,” Carll says. Each of those people – whether they know it or not – have played a part in my story, and it’s gratifying and humbling to me to have them lend their voices to this song.”

In the end, Carll’s latest album is a lovingly and purposefully written collection of reminders. “I hope other people find something in it, too” Carll says. “Through it all, I am trying to stay appreciative, knowing that I did what I set out to do: write something that can help me navigate this journey with a little more grace and peace.”

Tyler-James Kelly

Tyler-James Kelly makes 1970s-inspired country music for the modern world. It's a warm, lived-in sound, created by a longtime songwriter who's happy to be a torchbearer for the music that's always inspired him. 

That sound reaches a new peak with Dream River, Kelly's full-length solo debut. He wrote the album's 10 songs at home in Rhode Island, during a period of change and rebirth. "My lady and I had just moved into a small, mid-century house on a hill, overlooking a river that I'd grown up swimming in," he says. "It's a very humble house, but it does things to you. One day, I just picked up my guitar and banged out a tune about gratitude and the peace that a home like this can bring."

That song became the launchpad for an entire album that not only pays tribute to the people and places that have influenced Kelly's life, but also the vintage music that's fueled him for decades. Inspired by his new surroundings — a deck that he rebuilt himself, a nostalgic river flowing past his property, and a rural landscape that offered a break from the hard hustle of city life — Kelly began to dig deep, writing songs that embraced his longtime love of country music. He had already spent years on the road, fronting a critically-acclaimed blues-rock band, but moving to that house in the Rhode Island countryside helped shift his perspective and his priorities. "I decided I was done with anything that wasn't 100% authentic in my life," Kelly explains. "I wanted to show everyone who I really am. People can create a character version of themselves, and I wanted to get rid of that."

Dream River takes its cues from the American roots music that Kelly first discovered in childhood. A guitarist since the age of 10, he grew up listening to honky-tonk pickers and top-shelf songwriters, falling in love with artists like Hank Williams, Jerry Reed, Robert Johnson, George Jones, and Jim Croce. He also developed a taste for the storytellers of the 1970s, including Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Don Williams, and Guy Clark. "There's this joke that my parents used to say, which is, 'Tyler walked into a corn maze in 1975, and he just came out now,'" Kelly says. "And I was born in 1988! I grew up at my Nanna's house, though, and I was raised with a lot of old antiques and records. Other kids had CDs; I had 45s and 8-tracks."

Kelly's appreciation for the old stuff — vintage tones, timeless songwriting, analog production — is on full display with Dream River, an album that turns classic ingredients into something contemporary. The album bounces between waltzing country (the titular "Dream River"), dark and desperate Americana ("Hard Times"), and highway-bound honky-tonk ("Traveling' Troubadour"), with Kelly's big, booming baritone leading the way. Recorded at Dead Pop Studios in Providence, Rhode Island, Dream River also features contributions from instrumentalists like drummer Bart Lingley (The Chicks, Jim Lauderdale), pedal steel guitarist  Will Van Horn (Robert Ellis), engineer/multi-instumentalist Nicholas Coolidge, and bassist Lee Clay Johnson (author of Nitro Mountain). 

Hailed by Rolling Stone as a "deft chicken-pickin' guitarist" with a "head-turner" live show, Tyler-James Kelly sees Dream River as more than just an introduction to his solo career. He views the album as a part of something much bigger. It's a celebration of the music that's inspired generations of songwriters, pickers, and fans, performed by a songwriter who's happy to wear his influences on his sleeve. The way Kelly sees it, he's just carrying the tradition forward. 

"I just want to be a torch holder for something that's very American — something that means the world to me and my community of country music lovers," he says. "Country was originally called folk music. It's music for the people. It's stories about life. That's all I'm trying to be a part of."