Muddy Bottom Blues
Program #244 (May 14 at 8:00pm and May 15 at 3:00pm)
A sought-after collaborator, songwriter and musician, Travis Linville’s touring instrumental work includes turns onstage with Samantha Crain and Hayes Carll and session work with too many artists to count, among them gifted American songwriter John Moreland.
In recent years, he’s performed his own music as hand-selected support for Carll, fellow Oklahomans Moreland and Parker Millsap, Todd Snider’s Hard Working Americans, and even country legend Marty Stuart.
Combined with his hundreds of solo shows, these collaborations and his recorded catalog, including 2017’s Up Ahead LP, have built for Linville a dedicated group of fans equally enamored of his nonchalant technical skill—whether as his own producer and studio engineer, or on guitar, pedal steel, piano, mandolin, or any number of other instruments—and his artistry and taste.
In 2018, Linville found himself with a handful of songs approaching studio readiness and bored of his typical “record, release, repeat” grind without much outside influence. Meanwhile, McPherson was searching for the right project to flex his producing muscles. A few conversations later, and a match made in Oklahoma, but brought to life in Tennessee, was born.
Linville’s 2021 album, presciently titled I’m Still Here, was initially tracked live to tape in early 2019 at Memphis Magnetic Studio. Working around delays in respective tour schedules, they completed the record almost a year later at Linville’s home studio and 3 Sirens in Nashville, only to have it heartbreakingly shelved again due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(provided by Travis Linville)
