Chris Leigh & the Broken Hearts Set to Launch New
CD,
Broken Hearted Friends, February 12 on
Blue River Records
LOUISVILLE, KY – Country/Americana singer Chris Leigh
announces a February 12 release date for his new CD, Broken Hearted
Friends, on Blue River Records. The new CD, produced by Jim “Moose”
Brown and recorded at his Moose Lodge Studios in Nashville, showcases Chris
Leigh’s exciting mix of honky-tonk country, rockabilly and roots-driven music
backed by a host of Music City A-list pickers, including Brown on
guitar/keyboards/bass/backing vocals, Troy Lancaster on guitar, Kevin “Swine”
Grantt on bass, Scotty Sanders on pedal steel/dobro, Tommy Harden on drums and
Curtis Wright on backing vocals. “Moose” Brown is also a Grammy-winning
songwriter (“It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”) and multiple ACM keyboard award
nominee. The album was mixed by 10 Time Grammy-winner Benny
Faccone.
“I was very lucky to have worked with such an
amazing group of Nashville cats on this album,” exclaims Chris Leigh. “Each of
these guys brought their own unique style and talent to my music, which really
helped to shape the songs into what we hear. Most of the tunes were done in one
take, which is pretty amazing when you consider they had never heard these songs
before. The energy in the room was amazing!”
Broken Hearted Friends contains 10 all-original
songs penned by Chris Leigh that feature his soulful vocals performed in a style
influenced by blue-collar, hard-core country. It’s a sound that’s filled with
rockin’ honky-tonk anthems and powerful ballads that tug at the heartstrings.
The title track is destined to become a live sing-along favorite, as Chris and
his rowdy friends blast out the chorus, “Here I am again, with my broken hearted
friends,” in the tale of a poor soul whose girl’s “got something against
football,” among other negative attributes. Chris Leigh is a bona fide barroom
poet and prophet who clearly wears his broken heart on his sleeve in many of
these songs.
The rest of the tracks on Broken Hearted Friends
are chockfull of dazzling country music imagery, whether Chris is
telling the story of a wild odyssey in “Ramblin’ Man,” offering up the powerful
ballad, “If You Make It to Heaven,” laying down a cool rockabilly groove in
“Heartache and Misery,” crafting a Western Swing dancehall two-step in “Who’s
That,” spinning the crying-in-your beer lament, “Money” (another future live fan
favorite), or closing the album with an homage to Willie Nelson, “Whiskey
River.”
“I suppose I owe a certain amount of gratitude (in
some weird way) to my ex-wife for this album,” reflects Leigh. “Had she not
divorced me I probably would not have written these songs. Most of these
tunes are based on actual events that took place after our divorce a couple
years ago. It was a very tough time for me but it also gave me a chance to
reflect on my life and what was truly important to me: my kids and my music.”
Chris Leigh’s life story reads like a classic country song.
One of 10 kids raised by very devout religious parents in a small red brick home
in Kentucky, he hitched to California while still in his teens to try to make it
in the music business; but after several years of trying he returned home to
Kentucky. After additional years of trying, he abandoned his musical aspirations
for a while, got a job as a salesman, married and raised a family. After his
marriage ended in heartbreak, he picked his guitar back up in 2010 and started
writing and singing again. All of those life experiences gave Chris the fuel for
the songs that would become Broken Hearted Friends.
“Each of these songs - some funny, some sarcastic,
some sad and some downright depressing - are all very real and very personal for
me,” says Leigh. “They also reflect much of the music that I grew up hearing. It
was the music my father listened to that I wanted to bring back to life on this
album. The roots of my family run deep in Kentucky. The bluegrass is here, the
people are real and it makes me happy when I think back about my dad singing
along with the country radio in our old Ford truck or singing an old family folk
song to me when we would go squirrel hunting or work on the farm. Sometimes the
whole family would sing together when all 10 of us would pile in the station
wagon and head to the Smokies. We worked hard but had a lot of great times, even
though we were somewhat poor.”
Chris Leigh is touring in support of the new CD backed by his
aptly named road band, “The Broken Hearts,” which includes some of Kentuckiana’s
finest and most respected country and rock musicians. For more information,
visit
www.chrisleighmusic.com.
Rosa Henderson (November 24, 1896 – April 6, 1968) was an American jazz and classic female blues singer, and vaudeville entertainer.
Born Rosa Deschamps in Henderson, Henderson County, Kentucky, she is remembered as one of the greats of the 1920s and 1930s classic blues era. Her career as an entertainer began in 1913 when she joined her uncle's circus troupe.
She married Douglas "Slim" Henderson in 1918 and began travelling with his Mason-Henderson show. Her career as a musical comedian started during the early 1920s, after she moved to New York where she performed on Broadway and eventually in London.
Her nine year recording career began in 1923. During that time she recorded upwards of one hundred songs using numerous pseudonyms such as Sally Ritz, Flora Dale, Sarah Johnson, Josephine Thomas, Gladys White and Mamie Harris. She was accompanied by such bands as The Virginians, Fletcher Henderson's Jazz Five, Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra, Fletcher Henderson's Club Alabam Orchestra, the Choo Choo Jazzers, the Kansas City Five, the Three Jolly Miners, the Kansas City Four, the Three Hot Eskimos, and the Four Black Diamonds.
She sang the chorus on Fletcher Henderson's May 28, 1924, Vocalion recording of "Do That Thing", probably the earliest example of a female singing with a big band.
Although she began to show a marked decline in her recordings after 1926, she continued performing up until 1932 when she took a job in a New York department store.
She continued to perform benefit concerts up until the 1960s. Henderson died in Roosevelt Island, New York. She is no relation to Fletcher, Horace or Edmonia Henderson
