Folk Americana Artist, Reece Sullivan, Announces Fourth LP 'Arkansas' Out August 5
REECE SULLIVAN
— FOLK-LEANING AMERICANA ARTIST —
ANNOUNCES FOURTH STUDIO LP
ARKANSAS
RELEASES LEAD SINGLE
“I AM A GOOD MAN”
Above: Album cover art for ‘Arkansas’
NASHVILLE, TN (July 8, 2022) — Folk-leaning Americana artist Reece Sullivan has announced his forthcoming — and fourth — full-length studio album, Arkansas, will be released on Friday, August 5. Out today is the lead single, “I Am A Good Man,” which found Americana Highways raving: “Sullivan’s songwriting identifies the balance within all of us — good people who’ve done some bad things…the music is swaggery and bluesy.”
The soulful, introspective musings and storytelling throughout the 10-song Arkansas delivers a rich southern Americana soundscape filled with reminiscence and long roads traveled.
Arkansas, dubbed “the wonder state” for its natural scenic beauty and proud home state to legends Johnny Cash and Levon Helm, has inspired countless numbers with its southern charms. For Sullivan, it is where he was born, raised, and lived most of his life. In the early stages of Arkansas, several things began leading the now Lafayette-based artist back home. A friend suggested Blue Chair Studio in Austin, bandmate Jim McGee was game for a road trip, and another friend introduced him to Arkansas-based drummer Rafael Gayol. It was only fitting to name the album after Sullivan’s home state when it, like himself, had so many roots there.
The 10 songs on Arkansas have been living and evolving in Sullivan’s creative vault for some years. “The Night,” a song written for his son, was started back in 2004 when they lived in Little Rock but was finished years later. The most recently written song, “Be Still, My Heart” was written about five years ago. "Periodically, I’ll have older, unfinished songs come to mind, as though they’re still wanting and waiting to be written,” says Sullivan. "Sometimes, I realize how to make a song better after a decade or decade and a half later. Beethoven was reworking his symphonies till his death, so I’ve always reworked my stuff as I more clearly realize what to do with something.”
The album’s lead single “I Am A Good Man,” out today, was one such track. Sullivan started writing the tune around 2010 and then somewhat abandoned it. "Just before going into the studio to record Arkansas, this song came back to me and I basically formed up the chorus-y part. Lyrically speaking, it’s meant to be a little over the top in its own sort of way. I feel to say something in art, it often has to be writ larger than life. So that’s something in the nature of what I’m doing here.”
A key source of inspiration for Sullivan for many years has been poetry. Citing Shakespeare as a recurring favorite, he notes a special gift which spurred the album’s second single, “Be Still, My Heart."
“My wife and I had visited a very old bookstore in North Carolina around 2016 when on a mini-tour, and unknown to me, she had bought me a very old copy of ‘More Songs from Vagabondia,’ which I believe was given to me on Father’s Day. This was a pop-culture poetry book of its day and was considerably popular. On the chorus of ‘Be Still, My Heart’ I paraphrase some lines from that book, which worked as the inspiration for the rest of the song. I tend to gravitate to lyrical themes of ‘a home far away,’ which characterizes this song.”
Tracklisting for Arkansas:
“Till the Last Note's In Place”
“The Night”
“Two Hands on the Plow”
“Be Still, My Heart”
“I'm A Good Man”
“The Sarissa's Song”
“Bloodhound Blues”
“A Butterfly Flies”
“Virginia”
“Two Birds”
Above: Reece Sullivan, credit: Daniel Boone
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