Robert Francis Releases Surprise 'Amaretto' Album Featuring Marty Stuart and Ry Cooder
Above: ‘Amaretto’ Album Art
ROBERT FRANCIS
RELEASES SURPRISE AMERICANA-LEANING ALBUM
‘AMARETTO’
TODAY, MAY 1 VIA AERONAUT RECORDS
ALBUM FEATURES GUEST ARTISTS MARTY STUART, RY COODER & TERRY EVANS
NASHVILLE, TN (May 1, 2020) – Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Robert Francis has released Amaretto, his seventh full-length studio album, today via Aeronaut Records. The 11-song Americana-leaning album from the prolific artist features top-tier guests Ry Cooder, Marty Stuart and Terry Evans on multiple tracks. Francis partnered with American Songwriter yesterday to give fans an early listen to the album.
Recorded mostly in Nashville, TN and completed in 2018, Amaretto faced hurdles due to complications in manufacturing and distribution causing the two-year release delay. Following his temporary move to Nashville, Francis built a recording studio in the basement with an 8-track MCI Tape Machine, one mic for each instrument and no headphones, all intentionally structured for live takes. The result is a raw and skillfully etched collection. Above mentioned trailblazing musicians Ry Cooder, Marty Stuart and Terry Evans lent their talents to Amaretto in a separate session to round out an album filled with inspired, off-the-cuff performances.
The album delivers flavors from the full-spectrum of alt-country and Americana. Heart-tugging ballads with soaring harmonies and infectious phrasing are found in tunes like “How Long”—a song penned after the passing of his father—to uptempo burners like “Country Bar” which delivers blazing mandolin picking by Stuart and precision riff delivery from Ry Cooder. Other standouts include the title track which Francis says, “became the beginning of the whole album. When I was eight or nine, I took art lessons from the brilliant painter, John Brosio. The first still life I ever attempted was of an Amaretto bottle my Dad kept on the kitchen counter. When I moved to Nashville, I didn’t know a single soul. I was out there totally alone. One of my first afternoons there, the sky lit up a boozy, amber color and that still life popped into my head.”
Track listing for Amaretto:
1. “Other Side Of Heaven”
2. “How Long” ft. Ry Cooder & Marty Stuart
3. “Amaretto”
4. “The Way I Know How”
5. “Mendocino”
6. “Dreaming Man”
7. “First Time”
8. “Snakes In The Grass” ft. Terry Evans & Ry Cooder
9. “Country Bar” ft. Ry Cooder & Marty Stuart
10. “Other Side Of Heaven” ft. Terry Evans & Ry Cooder
11. “Bad Evidence”
Above: Robert Francis; credit: Cori Elliott
About Robert Francis:
Robert Francis was just 19 years old when he kickstarted his career with 2007's One By One, an album whose lushly-layered folk songs — all of them written, produced, and performed by the L.A. native, who played nearly every instrument himself — pointed to a songwriter whose evocative songwriting belied his young age. More than a dozen years later, Francis remains every bit the roots-music mainstay that his debut promised. He's a prolific performer. An international chart-topper. A road warrior who writes songs inspired not only by his own life, but also the lives of those he's encountered along the way.
Raised in Los Angeles as the youngest member of a music-filled household, Robert Francis benefited from a diverse musical climate thanks to his pianist/producer father, his songwriting sister Juliette Commagere, and his Mexican mother, who sang native ranchera songs around the house.
Family friend and acclaimed stringmaster Ry Cooder gave Francis his first guitar at age nine; seven years later, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante accepted Francis as his only guitar pupil. The unique education paid off as Francis released One by One, a richly layered album, filled with lush orchestrations and heaps of instruments. It also served as Francis' launching pad, netting him a modest audience as well as a major-label contract with Atlantic Records. When it came time to record a second album, however, the songwriter chose to scale things back. He assembled a small band and recorded Before Nightfall in one week, with Oasis producer Dave Sardy lending his help to the project. His third studio long-player, Strangers in the First Place, arrived in 2012, followed in 2014 by the Aeronaut-issued Heaven as Robert Francis & the Night Tide. Ever prolific, he kept the albums coming. Most recently was the 2016 full-length, Fire Engine Red and 2017’s Indian Summer.
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