Amy Ray Announces New Album ‘Holler’ & Shares Single

Amy Ray will release her sixth solo album, Holler, through Compass Records on September 28. The guest-filled album features the lead single “Sure Feels Good Anyway.”

Ray, who founded Indigo Girls with Emily Saliers in the early-1980s, recorded Holler with the members of her touring band at Echo Mountain Studio in Asheville, North Carolina. The follow-up to 2014’s Goodnight Tender includes 14 new originals and guest appearances by banjoist Alison Brown, guitarist Derek Trucks and Tedeschi Trucks Band keyboardist Kofi Burbridge, with vocals provided by Brandi Carlile, The Wood Brothers, Justin Vernon, Phil Cook, Vince Gill, Lucy Wainwright Roche and Rutha Mae Harris of The Freedom Singers.

Here’s Ray’s note regarding Holler:

The band and I recorded Holler live to analog tape at Echo Mountain Studio in Asheville, NC, over a 10 day period in January 2018. The album is inspired by traditional country, southern rock, mountain music, gospel and bluegrass. It fits in the Americana genre. The songs are all my own compositions and tell stories of late nights, love, addiction, immigration, despair, honkytonks, growing up in the south, touring for decades, being born in the midst of the civil rights movement, and the constant struggle to find balance in the life of a left-wing Southerner who loves Jesus, her homeland and its peoples. There is a tip of the hat to the great Jim Ford 1969 release, Harlan County. With songs inspired by, the film Winter’s Bone; and the Appalachian poet Byron Herbert Reece; as well as the great writer, Toni Cade Bambara. Following my first 2104 country record, which was my 5th solo studio release, this record is a natural progression from the stillness of a Goodnight Tender to the friction, freedom and restlessness of a Holler, with the addition of strings and horns to bring the swagger.

Stream “Sure Feels Good Anyway” below:

Holler Tracklist

1. Gracie’s Dawn (Prelude)
2. Sure Feels Good Anyway
3. Dadgum Down
4. Last Taxi Fare
5. Old Lady Interlude
6. Sparrow’s Boogie
7. Oh City Man
8. Fine With the Dark
9. Tonight I’m Paying the Rent
10. Holler
11. Jesus Was a Walking Man
12. Sparrow’s Lullaby
13. Bondsman (Evening in Missouri)
14. Didn’t Know a Damn Thing