working together through an organic approach, as they help new and veteran artists find their place

CELEBRATES LEGENDARY VENICE BEACH STREET PERFORMER

•••••

Tribute album due October 23 features James McMurtry, Kasey Chambers, Mary Gauthier, Tim Easton, Shinyribs and an unheard Hawkins original hidden track

AUSTIN, Texas — Cold and Bitter Tears: The Song of Ted Hawkins, released October 23, 2015 on Austin-based Eight 30 Records, marks the first tribute album to the soulful Venice Beach street performer, a legend overseas later in his lifetime but a songwriter largely overlooked in the States. Hawkins simply sang like songs were stamped on his heart at birth. Evidence: High watermarks on the new record such as “Big Things” (James McMurtry), “Cold and Bitter Tears” (Kasey Chambers), “Sorry You’re Sick” (Mary Gauthier), “Who Got My Natural Comb” (Shinyribs) and several other classics. Hawkins himself backs the point with the album’s hidden track, the moving unreleased demo “Great New Year.”

The Mississippi native, who died January 1, 1995 after a hardscrabble life and brief autumnal rise in popularity, might be gone but he’s clearly not forgotten. Local Americana power trio...  more

released October 23, 2015

Track listing:

“Big Things” • James McMurtry

“Cold and Bitter Tears” • Kasey Chambers and Bill Chambers

“One Hundred Miles” • Tim Easton

“Sorry You’re Sick” • Mary Gauthier

“Strange Conversation” • Jon Dee Graham

“Happy Hour” • Sunny Sweeney

“I Got What I Wanted” • Randy Weeks

“Baby” • Tina-Michelle Fowler with Elizabeth Hawkins

“I Gave Up All I Had” • Gurf Morlix

“Bad Dog” • Danny Barnes

“Bring It on Home Daddy” • The Damnations

“My Last Goodbye” • Ramsay Midwood

“Who Got My Natural Comb” • Shinyribs

“Whole Lotta Women” • Steve James

“Peace and Happiness” • Even Felker

DANNY BARNES’ GOT MYSELF TOGETHER (TEN YEARS LATER) RELEASES NOVEMBER 27 ON AUSTIN’S EIGHT 30 RECORDS

Recent Steve Martin Prize in Banjo and Bluegrass winner showcases his artistic evolution by rerecording his classic Get Myself Together in stripped-down form

SEATTLE – Danny Barnes’ first collection in six years showcases a singular songwriter and player in peak form as Got Myself Together (Ten Years Later) reworks his classic album a decade on (“Big Girl Blues,” “Get Me Out of Jail”). The Seattle-area resident simply strips songs to their essence on the new recording. “I spend a lot of time developing new contexts like the barnyard electronics aesthetic,” Barnes says. “Get Myself Together was my last acoustic-type recording and I get quite a bit of fan mail about it, but the label that released it went out of business. I wanted to make something with this record that featured more of my raw acoustic sound, as though I was kind of playing in your living room.”

Folks notice Got Myself Together (Ten Years Later), releasing November 27 on Eight 30 Records, delivering Barnes...  more

released November 27, 2015

Tracks:
1. Get Myself Together
2. Rat's Ass
3. Big Girl Blues
4. Get Me Out of Jail
5. Cumberland Gap
6. Let Your Light Shine On Me
7. Cut a Rug
8. Corn Kingdom Come
9. Wasted Mind
10. Get It On Down the Line
11. Cat to the Rat
12. Big Shoe
13. I'm Convicted

The compilation CD, Dreamer: A Tribute to Kent Finlay features the songs of Kent Finlay recorded by James McMurtry, Randy Rogers and Sunny Sweeney, Steve Poltz, Jamie Wilson and more!)

Kent Finlay’s skyrocketed aspiring artists for four decades now. You know the names: George Strait. Stevie Ray Vaughan. Todd Snider. James McMurtry. Eric Johnson. The list literally goes on forever. Each songwriter’s an unmatched talent with one common thread: Finlay launched their careers from the stage at his legendary Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos, Texas. Finlay’s simply the most respected lyrical editor and talent scouter in Texas – not to mention a singular songwriter himself.
“Songwriter. Mentor. Curator. Teacher. Historian,” longtime acolyte Owen Temple says. “Kent Finlay has helped create the best of what Texas music has been and is.” “Kent Finlay’s a guru, a Yoda,” says legendary songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard. “He has an incredible sense of craft and the right inspiration for why he does it. For him, it’s not about what he can get. It’s about what he can give, what he can contribute to the music.”

Kent Finlay: Dreamer tells his story. You’ll find the best of both worlds: Jenni Finlay’s intimate interviews with her father about...  more

released March 2, 2016

Dreamer: A Tribute to Kent Finlay

“I’ll Sing You a Story” • Terri Hendrix

“Bright Lights of Brady” • Walt Wilkins

“Comfort’s Just a Rifle Shot Away” • James McMurtry

“Yesterday’s Oatmeal” • Brennen Leigh and Noel McKay

“Still Think About You” • William Clark Green

“Be Nice to ’Em Son” • Adam Carroll

“Between You and Me” • Randy Rogers and Sunny Sweeney

“The Plight of the Bumblebee” • Steve Poltz

“I’ve Written Some Life” • HalleyAnna

“Mines of Terlingua” • Owen Temple

“Taken Better Care of Myself” • Jon Dee Graham

“Lost” • Slaid Cleaves

“The Songwriter” • Matt Harlan

“Hill Country” • Jamie Wilson with the Hill Country Choir

Tribute album due October 28 on Eight 30 Records features James McMurtry, Hayes Carll, Slaid Cleaves, Band of Heathens, Tim Easton and Aaron Lee Tasjan

AUSTIN, TX – Highway Prayer: A Tribute to Adam Carroll, due October 28 on Austin-based Eight 30 Records, celebrates a true songwriter's songwriter, a Texas tunesmith who has inspired both younger and older artists for nearly two decades. Carroll simply captures entire lifetimes among stilled snapshots like few other songwriters (“Screen Door,” “Girl with the Dirty Hair”). “I try to find moments that are sublime,” Carroll xplains. “They just last a little bit and then you're back to your regular life and strife, but there are just these perfect little moments.” Evidence: “Black Flag Blues,” “Red Bandana Blues,” “South of Town,” “Smoky Mountain Taxi” and dozens more.
Carroll sketches characters with a novelist’s eye (“Errol's Song”) and a poet's elegance (“Hi Fi Love”) as his vivid vignettes frequently turn personal into universal within seconds (“Highway Prayer”). Consider “Rain.” “I'm feeling like a bird dragging through the storm/Feeling like a scarecrow standing in the corn,” the down and defeated narrator declares. “Sometimes you can't get through, sometimes it just takes two/Sometimes two adds up to nothing.” Such sideways glances define his literate landscapes. “Long compared to the likes of John Prine and Townes Van Zandt,” the Austin Chronicle once raved, “Adam Carroll proves he's beyond compare.”
Admittedly, eyebrows raised throughout the Lone Star state and beyond as news spread about this tribute record. After all, the Central Texas-based songwriter has notched only forty-two trips around the sun, a young man by any measure. No matter. Carroll's deeply observant stories simply deserve wider attention beyond his reverent peers. “Adam's a songwriter's songwriter, a unique voice who's important to a lot of songwriters,” longtime fan Hayes Carll says. “A lot of people are influenced by him. That's the measure of if you deserve a tribute record: Are there people you have influenced enough who will come and do it? That's undoubtably so with Adam.”

Clearly. Scan the roster who jumped the notion was mentioned: Slaid Cleaves. Terri Hendrix. James McMurtry. Verlon Thompson. Walt Wilkins. Only songs with the most depth and weight turn those heads. “Adam has so many great songs,” Cleaves says. “There are only a couple of writers who consistently catch my ear and remind me of the subtle joy that great songs can bring. It's artisanal songwriting. Never gonna be sold at Walmart, but it'll remind the fortunate few that great songwriting can connect you to your neighbors, your fellow humans, even your own jaded heart.”

Tim Easton doubles down. “Adam Carroll is East Texas' own Shakespeare of song,” the East Nashville resident says. “Listen and learn, people. Listen for the details that make us human. Learn how to write about a culture that you are fascinated with. Find the details in behavior that make us all sympathize. His songs belong in Texan and Bayou anthropology courses, but mostly they should belong to your car stereo speakers.” Other titles on Eight 30 Records include Cold and Bitter Tears: The Songs of Ted Hawkins, Dreamer: A Tribute to Kent Finlay and Danny Barnes' Got Myself Together (Ten Years Later). See below for full track listing on Highway Prayer: A Tribute to Adam Carroll.

Tracks:

Screen Door - James McMurtry 

Girl With The Dirty Hair - Hayes Carll

South of Town - Slaid Cleaves 

Oklahoma Gypsy Shuffler - Band of Heathens 

Hi Fi Love - Jamie Lin Wilson 

Lil' Runaway - Verlon Thompson 

Rain - Scott Nolan
Old Town Rock N Roll - Matt The Electrician 

Black Flag Blues - Tim Easton and Aaron Lee Tasjan 

Smoky Mountain Taxi - Danny Barnes

Erroll's Song - Jason Eady 

Red Bandana Blues - Terri Hendrix

Karaoke Cowboy - Noel McKay and Brennen Leigh 

Home Again - Mando Saenz 

Highway Prayer - Walt Wilkins 

Bonus Tracks - My Only Good Shirt - Adam Carroll

Chris Fullerton sings country music bold and brave beyond compare. Evidence: Epilepsy Blues. The Central Texas singer-songwriter’s stunning debut, releasing on Austin-based Eight 30 Records on August 11, delivers hard truths both elegantly (“Bad Winds”) and effortlessly (“Come to Texas”). High watermarks simply stun with candor (“I Feel Nothing,” the title track). “The songs are about my depression and struggle to cope with a medical crisis,” Fullerton says. “A lot are very hopeful about being in a dark place but knowing there’s light at the end of the tunnel and I’m gonna survive.”

credits

Bad Winds 

Come to Texas 

I Feel Nothing 

Ma Chere Amie 

Epilepsy Blues 

Float On Up And See 

Motel Blues 

Come On In

El Paso Spacedance 

Seven Roman Candles

Emily Herring simply sings purest country music. Witness Gliding. Herring’s fourth record, produced by legendary instrumentalist Steve Fishell and released on Austin-based Eight 30 Records, delivers all raw emotion with a voice branded at birth for honkytonks. Listen. You’ll hear. The daytime auto mechanic and nighttime singer-songwriter effortlessly infuses her new collection with equal measures swagger (“Millers in Milwaukee”) and sway (“Best Thing”). “I found an immediate connection with Emily,” Fishell says. “Her voice rings like Rosie Flores did in the 1980s when I played with her during the Los Angeles cowpunk movement. She has that energy and fire.”

Gliding shows both while deftly balancing sharp songwriting (“Last of the Houston Honkytonk Heroes”) with endlessly energy (the Commander Cody classic “Semi Truck”). Spiritual motion guides the journey (“Gettin’ By”). “Gliding’s a movement with a certain stillness attached,” the longtime Central Texas resident says. “You’re at the mercy of the wind along with the extreme force of gravity. The title track leads you off the ledge and into a moment where time stands still, your thoughts slowly moving through what could have been with only the implication of the inevitable.”

Longtime fans know Herring’s elegant lyrics seamlessly balance Americana, Western swing, gypsy jazz and traditional country influences into her own signature sound. Her soaring vocals, however, set her apart from the rest. Emily pulls no punches. Her hard-hitting-no-frills crooning sung with a distinctive twang pays dividends: Fresh off the heels of her Swedish tour and a residency at McMenamin’s Crystal Hotel in Portland, Emily received a 2015 Ameripolitan Award Nomination for her CD Your Mistake. The album also won her the Carl T. Sprague Award from the Texas Music Awards, an honor she shares with only one other recipient, Michael Martin Murphey.

Your Mistake was featured in several publications including No Depression and CMT Edge. In turns dazzling and stark, Your Mistake is a love letter and a warning, a honkytonk when the lights come up, the ring of the last change in your pocket as you spend it on the only beautiful girl in town. Herrings’s songs are poetry, wrought with pedal steel, dobro, telecaster, a careful reverence, and an honest eye. Stretching across Texas and the new West, the songs recall the last fifty years of country music in a sound all their own. Now, with Gliding and producer Fishell, Herring takes her music to a new level. 

FLOATER: A TRIBUTE TO THE TRIBUTES TO GARY FLOATER
RELEASING IN MAY 2018 ON AUSTIN-BASED EIGHT 30 RECORDS

Americana songwriting royalty including James McMurtry, The Band of Heathens,
Danny Barnes, Walt Wilkins, Guy Forsyth and more offer takes on country classics

AUSTIN, TX – News: Eight 30 Records will release the eighteen-song Floater: A Tribute to the Tributes to Gary Floater on May 4! “We're so excited about our new tribute album honoring the great Gary Floater,” says Eight 30 Records' Jenni Finlay, who produced the album with label co-owner Brian T. Atkinson. “There's truly never been anyone like him.” Indeed, Floater tunes are simply singular. Consider a few titles alone: “Whatever Man,” “Thanks Me,” “Let Me Kiss You Where It Hurts,” “A Hero Never Learns,” “Grandpa's Promise,” “Pull Over I Wanna Eat That” and “Sunburn Lake.”

Floater: A Tribute to the Tributes to Gary Floater offers a veritable who's who of singer-songwriters with their takes on Floater's solid gold country classics. A short list – The Band of Heathens (“The Dirty South”), James McMurtry (“Grandpa's Promise”), Jason Eady (“Stand Back Boys I'm Fixing to Care”), Rod Picott (“That's What I'm Gonna Do”) – gives a glimpse. Floater himself will embark on his 40-city “Drink a Forty for the Fortieth” tour later this year celebrating the 40th anniversary of his unforgettable 1978 landmark album Denim on Denim, which features several songs on the new tribute.

SIDE ONE
Walt Wilkins • “Whatever Man”
The Band of Heathens • “The Dirty South”
Jamie Lin Wilson feat. Courtney Patton • “That's When the Eagle Screams”
Matt Harlan • “Let Me Kiss You Where It Hurts”
Jason Eady • “Stand Back Boys I'm Fixing to Care”
Matt the Electrician feat. Little Brave and Seela • “A Hero Never Learns”
Brennen Leigh • “Pull Over I Wanna Eat That”
Rod Picott • “That's What I'm Gonna Do”
Danny Barnes • “Dust Off the Dulcimer (One More Time)”

(Break: A message from Eight 30 Records co-owner Jenni Finlay)

SIDE TWO
Noel McKay • “Let's Get This Over With”
Kelley Mickwee • “Sunburn Lake”
Chris Fullerton • “Holding On So Tight”
James McMurtry • “Grandpa's Promise”
The Band of Apostles feat. Jason Eady and Gordy Quist • “Sad Mall”
Bonnie Whitmore • “Hello Diabetes”
BettySoo • “Y'all Watch This”
Guy Forsyth • “Thanks Me”
The River Choir • “The River Flows”