Award-Winning Songwriter/ Producer Will Kimbrough Documents The Challenges Of 2020 In His New Album, Spring Break go on tour and perform again, Kimbrough By Nathan Pugh focused all his efforts on songwriting and Singer/Songwriter/Producer and survival. He could quickly observe the Americana musician Will Kimbrough will be political climate, the tragic losses, and the releasing his tenth solo album this month on effects it was causing. October 23rd. The new album is going to be “I wrote ‘All Fall Down’ with a friend, an all-acoustic album appropriately titled after discussing the strange world of the Spring Break. Sidelined by the Covid-19 politics surrounding COVID and the divided crisis, Kimbrough has decided to document this event through his new album. This won’t United States,” he explains. “When be the first time Will has explored avenues John Prine passed like this through his writing. On his album from COVID, I Americanitis, he delved into themes such as wrote ‘The Late anti-war and anti-greed. Later on in his Great John Prine album Wings he explored such subjects as Blues.’ Then, I conflicts between family and career, and love finished a song and work. with a songwriting The new album is created pretty much hero, Milton in the vein of the documentary-inspired and Brown—who also storytelling tradition of the Folkways and Vanguard folk records. For this album he had happens to be one of Jimmy Buffett’s decided to concentrate on the pandemic and its effects on the world and its population in a early mentors,” ‘Digging a Ditch musical form. He says that the title comes with a Spoon’” from the Spring of 2020 or as he puts it, Will started “When the world broke, and we all took a this venture out break.: with three newly The album indeed draws on penned songs and Kimbrough’s experience with the global after reviewing the experience. He thought it would be a good results of his thing to document the event through his creativity, decided music. Like many other musicians out there, to keep on going. he was heavily impacted by this great He even enlisted tragedy. Will was on tour in Australia when the songwriting the pandemic broke out and was forced to help of a few return to his home in Nashville. friends such as the With no idea when he might be able to 38 Rock and Blues International • October 2020
collaboration with Todd Snider on “Rocket Fuel” and “Cape Henry”, not to mention the collaboration with Adrienne Young on “Home Remedy” and “Plow to the End of the Row.” Along with the new collaborations, he also looked to his past and pulled a song out that he had written a long time ago. “I revisited a song I had recorded at my parents old beach house on the Gulf of Mexico, ‘Child of Light,’ and realized that I loved the version I had recorded.” Throughout the whole month of April, Will wrote nearly every day working on the music that would become Spring Break. “Before I knew it, I had 14 solo acoustic songs recorded that I just loved.” We’re told that the new set of songs run the gamut between ‘gentle and wistful reminiscing, to more forceful questioning, to simple reflections.’ We can hardly wait to hear them. With Will Kimbrough’s great songwriting talent, they’re bound to be truly inspiring. During this pandemic, Will has certainly been busy. Despite not being able to tour and not knowing when it might be safe to, he has poured his energy into delivering his music to his fans through his weekly Facebook Live performances and his Patreon page. Here he gives live performances, podcasts, and even a few lessons. It would be well worth checking out when you get a chance. We can hardly wait for Will to get this album out, it should be quite an experience. Sometimes creativity comes from the most unlikely of experiences, and this pandemic is surely one of them. We expect nothing but the best in great acoustic music on this new release. Be sure to check out Spring Break at the end of this month.
