Texas-Based Emily Herring Exults In Her Traditional Country, Honky-Tonk and Western Swing Roots on New CD, "Your Mistake," Due May 21 on Turquoise Earring Records

Texas-Based Emily Herring Exults In Her Traditional Country, Honky-Tonk and Western Swing Roots on Debut CD, Your Mistake, Due May 21 on Turquoise Earring Records

Emily Will Celebrate New CD with Album Release Shows on May 16 at the Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos; and May 24 at the War Horse in Austin

SAN MARCOS, TX – With a distinctive Texas twang of a voice that echoes across the plains of her home state, Emily Herring announces the rival of a new sweetheart of the rodeo with her debut CD release, Your Mistake, coming May 21 on Turquoise Earring Records. It’s a voice born and bred in the honky-tonks, dancehalls and roadhouses of the Lone Star State, bathed in a wash of sweet guitars, dobro and pedal steel, and pushed by a rhythm section that’s just guaranteed to get feet on the dance floor.

Singer/guitarist Emily Herring will celebrate her new CD with two area album release shows: May 16 at the Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos; and May 24 at The War Horse in Austin.

Your Mistake features an even-dozen original songs that showcase Emily Herring’s wondrous way with words, backed by a sympathetic band that lays in the grooves and just won’t stop until the CD does. Recorded in her one-time base of Portland, Oregon, the new album really took root once Emily returned to her native Texas and set up shop in San Marcos, where she regularly plays as a solo act and with her touring band, Emily Herring and Henpecked. She is equally a player and a lyricist, with influences of traditional country, honky-tonk, western swing and southern blues.

In turns dazzling and stark, Your Mistake is a love letter and a warning, with her no-frills lyrics cutting like a knife in one song, and soothing as a cool mountain stream in another, all the while always ringing true. That’s evident from the get-go with the opening track, “Austin (Ain’t Got No) City Limits,” a tip of the hat paean that name-checks a passel of local landmarks in the “Live Music Capital of the World.” Stretching across Texas and the new West, the songs on her album recall the last 50 years of country music in a sound uniquely hers.

“I feel like Your Mistake as an album is mostly about my realizing that one of the most important things about who I am is defining myself as a Texan,” Herring says. “I lived in Oregon for nine years, and in the last few years I really missed my home. Songs like ‘Turquoise Earrings,’ ‘Terlingua’ and particularly ‘One Sip of Water’ are deeply about that. But in songs like ‘Your Mistake,’ Wanna Holler’- and ironically ‘One Sip of Water’ - I outline why living in Texas is also hard for me. It's very bittersweet, but when I lay it all out, I'd rather relate to people through music and culture than through politics and mindset. I know that when I walk into a Texas honky-tonk full of folks I've never met I get a lot of looks, but if I've got a guitar case in my hand, by the end of the night I'll make a room full of friends and fans. People here really care about their music, and they want to see a performer who cares about it just as much as they do, and that is basically what I live for.”

Born and raised in Texas, Emily has played at festivals, clubs and showcases all around the country. During her time in Portland, she played throughout the northwest before moving back to Texas in 2010 to be closer to the heart of the country music she loves so much.

“Herring twangs, plucks and warbles like country singers of yore, gun-slingin’ her guitar with a clear-headed progressive attitude and the ‘don’t mess with me’ swagger of a true outlaw,” wrote The Portland Mercury in a review of one of her local shows. “Emily Herring weaves songs out of a bluesy country fabric that is so much a part of Central Texas. In a sea of sound-alike singer/songwriters, Herring demands to be heard,” said Ink 19 Magazine. And City Beat Cincinnati summed up its review by stating: “Herring is an original voice doing extraordinary things in the simplest term…A big plate of Texas Country with a side of Delta Blues.”

To stream “Austin (Ain’t Got No) City Limits),” click on this link: Emily Herring Song