LEDFOOT – ‘Thunder And Rain’ the award winning releases second single from new album
19th April 2024Tim Scott McConnell (aka Ledfoot) is an American musician and songwriter who has been based in Norway for the last three decades. Starting out in 1980 as a member of The Rockats while still in his teens, he then recorded two solo records in the mid-‘80s before co-founding The Havalinas, who also issued two albums and supported Bob Dylan on his ‘Oh Mercy’ world tour to promote the first. His 1987 solo song ‘High Hopes’ was subsequently covered twice by Bruce Springsteen, initially for the B’side of a 1996 single and again for what became the title song of a 2014 album that went to no. 1 in multiple territories, including both the US and UK.
In between those boosts from The Boss, McConnell had begun recording a highly distinctive brand of Gothic Blues as Ledfoot from his base in the Norwegian woods, with his first of six albums to date under that name appearing in 2007. His thickly-strung 12-string acoustic guitar played with a brass slide and stomp box served as an accompaniment to his weather-beaten voice, sounding raw and genuinely real. He has gone on to win the Spellemann Award (Norwegian Grammy) in the Blues category twice, including for his most recent recording, 2022’s ‘Coffin Nails’.
His magnificent seventh, ‘Outsiders’, consists of nine self-written new songs and, for the first time as Ledfoot, it sees him accompanied by a full band for a record that operates on a wider musical spectrum, albeit one still rooted in his 12-string sound. Gliding effortlessly between songs redolent of Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons, Bruce Springsteen and even Mink DeVille, ‘Outsiders’ was recorded in just four days at Studio Nyhagen in the countryside north of Oslo and its resulting ‘live vibe’ stands as testimony to truly great musicianship.
A second single from the album, ’Thunder And Rain’, has been released today, with Ledfoot explaining that “this is a song about the storm that rages in some people who through circumstance and their upbringing never stood a chance.” It follows the release of ‘I Do Believe’ in early April.
‘Outsiders’ sees Ledfoot himself once again demonstrate his excellent songwriting and storytelling skills via vocal performances packed with all the requisite integrity and authority. The album title itself is also no coincidence; a collection of songs about people living on the edge, each in different ways relates to the story of an outsider, those who might find themselves lost and ultimately dealt a dud hand in their life’s story, but at the same time unwilling to accept defeat without a fight.
“‘Outsiders’ is a little homage to my influences growing up in the south [USA],” states McConnell. “It is a record about just that; the losers, outcasts, wannabes, small people with big dreams. I grew up listening to gunfighter and murder ballads and this is a record for all those without hope and the hopeless, their stories and the dreams that keep going….like me.”
OUTSIDERS
TRACKLISTING
1 Thunder And Rain 3:18
2 Destiny 3:57
3 Dead Is Dead 3:30
4 Turn Me Into You 4:23
5 I Do Believe 2:51
6 I’m The Outsider 5:28
7 Old Brown Bar 4:23
8 Better Side 4:54
9 Here In My Head 4:15
All songs written by Tim Scott McConnell
Engineered and mixed by Kjartan Hesthagen and Winter Lazerus at Studio Nyhagen
Mastered by Winter Lazerus
MUSICIANS
Ledfoot – lead vocals, guitar, harmonica
Markus O. Klyve – keyboards, backing vocals
Bjørn Holm – bass, double bass, backing vocals
Tobby Johansen – drums, percussion
