gretchen peters songs of mickey newbury

​Gretchen Peters (from the album The Night You Wrote That Song: The Songs of Mickey Newbury available from Scarlett Letter Records)
Making the most of the music of Mickey Newbury, Gretchen Peters reminds of the songwriter’s worth as she shines a light on Mickey’s words and music by emotionally reimagining his songs. For her recent release, The Night You Wrote That Song: The Songs of Mickey Newbury, Gretchen Peters becomes the understanding narrator, gazing down from a window to tell the tale of “St. Cecilia” and sharing the story of a lovelorn farmboy in “San Francisco Mabel Joy”. She becomes the child speaking of an unknown father in “The Sailor” and the left-at-home lover pining in “Why You Been Gone So Long”. Thanking the influence that Mickey Newbury has had on her own songwriting, Gretchen Peters finds a way to say thank you with Mickey’s own words, ‘you never knew how right you were the night you write that song’. The cut holding the line became the title for The Night You Wrote That Song, Gretchen fulfilling a longtime promise to herself with the recording, recalling in a Billboard magazine interview that ‘I had had the idea of recording an album of Mickey Newbury’s songs for the past 10 or 15 years, but it was always one of those ideas I put on the shelf because I was busy writing and making records of my own songs. About three years ago my husband and co-producer Barry Walsh and I decided to explore the idea of recording a few songs, as a sort of trial run, at Cinderella Studio, where Mickey recorded his great trio of albums in the late 60s/early 70s. I think we were hoping some of the magic would rub off. It turned out to be the best idea we could have had’.
On his own recording output, Mickey Newbury backed his words with an ever-changing musical backdrop, sidestepping a style brand to allow the songs their own unique sonic life. As a songwriter, Mickey Newbury scored major hits, The Night You Wrote That Song including his tune recorded by The First Edition with “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)”. The cut was a chart topper in 1968, a year that saw songs written by Mickey Newbury go Top five in four different charts: Pop/Rock with Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, Country with Eddy Arnold (“Here Comes the Rain, Baby”), R&B for Solomon Burke (“Time is a Thief”), and an Easy Listening hit with Andy Williams (“Sweet Memories”). A piano keeps rhythm as Gretchen Peters tosses hopes in the air with “Wish I Was” while guitar notes flicker like fading starlight in the sad dawn over “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye”. The Night You Wrote That Song: The Songs of Mickey Newbury is a tender trap, Gretchen Peters honing the hooks of a first rate songwriter, warming the poor soul in “Frisco Depot” with the comfort of a song, the dancehall huckster selling memories in “Three Bells for Stephen”, and the wanderer following the clarion call of a scratchy fiddle in “Leavin’ Kentucky”.
Listen and buy the music of Gretchen Peter from AMAZON
For more information, please visit the Gretchen Peters website
 
 

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