You’re Gonna Want To Be on Top of Tyler Childers’ “Purgatory” Album Produced By Sturgill Simpson

Photo: David McClister
Photo: David McClister

Over the decade of conducting business under the heading of “Saving Country Music,” no artist has created more anticipation and intrigue into what their future prospects may be, yet with so few national accomplishments and recognition than Tyler Childers. It’s a weekly, sometimes daily occurrence where SCM headquarters receives a request, “What’s going on with Tyler Childers?”

Tyler’s recorded output is relegated to an album released way back in 2011, and a couple of live Red Barn Radio sessions. Yet even with a lack of new material, from people in his home state of Kentucky and beyond seeing this red-haired country songwriter perform in front of acts such as Colter Wall and Kelsey Waldon, and on programs such as NPR’s Mountain Stage, there has been an incredible groundswell of interest in what Tyler Childers may develop into if he’s just given a fair chance.

Now Childers is receiving that chance, and in a big way. Recently signed with Thirty Tigers, and recruiting Grammy Award-winning fellow Kentuckian Sturgill Simpson as producer, Tyler Childers will release his long-awaited sophomore album Purgatory on August 4th. Also helping on the album is David Ferguson, who is well-known for his work with Johnny Cash, and Sturgill. Ahead of the release, Childers has released the acoustic song “Lady May” (listen below).

The album is said to be “… a semiautobiographical sketch of Childers’ growth from wayward youth to happily married man, told in the tradition of a Southern gothic novel with a classic noir antihero who may just be irredeemable. Purgatory is a chiaroscuro painting with darkness framing light in high relief. There’s catharsis and redemption. Sin and temptation. Murder and deceit. Demons and angels. Moonshine and cocaine. So much moonshine and cocaine. All played out on the large, colorful canvas of Eastern Kentucky.”

Expect this to be one of the biggest, most highly talked-about releases in independent country of the late summer. Forget that Sturgill Simpson emerges as a producer for the first time on a record without his name on it, the anticipation Childers has built up over the last few years should drive interest in Purgatory to a fevered pitch. Now 26-years-old and married, Childers looks to enter the music space as reinforcements to an already upsurging movement challenging the norms of Nashville.

tyler-childers-purgatoryPurgatory Track List:

  1. I Swear (to God)
  2. Feathered Indians
  3. Tattoos
  4. Born Again
  5. Whitehouse Road
  6. Banded Clovis
  7. Purgatory
  8. Universal Sound
  9. Honky Tonk Flame
  10. Lady May

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