Premiere: Don Gallardo unloads tremendous burdens with new album, ‘Still Here’ -

A musician’s life is a weary one. The art of writing and recording an album can be just as grueling as the long stretches of highway that piece together road life ⎯⎯ flickers of forgotten places and peoples toiling the earth just to make ends meet, vestiges of the past riddled with bloodshed and heartache. Americana tunesmith Don Gallardo, originally from a small Northern California town, nearly buckled under that weight. His new album, Still Here, out Friday (April 27) on Rock Ridge Music, is strewn with troubles of the heart, from the music industry’s crippling, blunt force to the exhaustive noise of the world. Across all 12 tracks, he handles his pain with discernment, carefully planting a determined, throbbing humanity at its center. “The process of this album really took a toll mentally and physically on me to a point where I contemplated just packing it up and walking away,” he tells B-Sides & Badlands, rather plainly.

It’s that solemn tone which serves as the album’s backbone, carrying with it well-earned, raw-eyed optimism drawn into his sharp and glistening phrasing. “With encouragement from my wife, I pushed on, and now, I feel this album is my best yet,” he continues.

With the help of David Pinkston and Dylan Aldridge, Gallardo hammers out a soul-dragging, self-produced set, which is welded shut with roots-rock, folk and the soft tear of tradition. It’s not too far removed from his usual style, but its the emotional richness that bounds forward triumphantly. The musical scope is owed in large part to a sublime band of players, including Old Crow Medicine Show mandolinist and steel player Joe Andrews, keyboardist Micah Hulscher (Margo Price), Dave Roe (Johnny Cash, Sturgill Simpson), the Steeldrivers’ Richard Bailey (on banjo), Neilson Hubbard and Andrew Squire (percussion), Clint Maine and Brent Mason (electric guitar), Whit Wright (pedal steel) and Jim Hoke (clarinet).

The exquisite Erin Rae shows up prominently on two standout cuts. The first is “The Golden Rule,” which serves as an ode to Gallardo’s son, a trembling plea about the world and its menacing clutches. “Blood washed downstream straight to the sea / Disappears in the deep ocean blue / I’ve kept your hands clean of the bad things I’ve seen / Ain’t that the golden rule…,” Gallardo weeps, Rae’s voice rising and falling in the background. It’s a meaty performance and especially moving in today’s woebegone era.

Then, with “A Boat Named Harmony,” Luella Mathes joins Gallardo to offer some solace right from the eye of a storm. “The winds got heavy, storm rolled in / The boat was shakin’, embracin’ the sea,” Mathes and Gallardo trade off lyrics before their vocals melt together once again. “You were crying, I was bailing / From the hull deep within the Harmony.”

That majestic, sweeping mix of sorrow and light ebbs and flows as mightily as the ocean’s surface, crashing against brittle storytelling and contrasting, airy arrangements. “This life that I’m living, I’m too old to give it up now / Been singing to strangers, in hopes that they feel it somehow / So I called up a friend and asked him how he’s getting on / He said, ‘There’s no other reason than to do it for the sake of the song,'” Gallardo ruminates over his lot in life as a working musician with “The Losing Kind,” nearly succumbing to those misgivings but ultimately resigning to his fate. Later on “Stay Awhile,” a saloon-style jazz feature, he delivers encouragement to fellow music-makers who lament the influx of newcomers to Nashville, “You didn’t need to venture too far / To finely find your bed of stars / Satellites dancing around in your head / The signal is clear, you ain’t going nowhere.”

While “The Bitter End” stresses steely optimism (“So give it your best shot, don’t give up / If your glass is empty, better fill your cup / Shoot for the sky, on a clear dark night / You can use the stars, if you lose the light,” he rallies, reminding the listener that giving up is never an option), he sinks further into the growing tension on “Trains Go By,” an overcast bookend tightened with Rae’s feathered and torn vocal chords. “Sometimes you lose your will / Sometimes you lose hope / Sometimes you lose your mind with nowhere to go,” Gallardo juggles, his voice laced with grim truths. But it is within those seemingly insurmountable moments of unrest that we often rediscover a zest for life and all its scars.

Still Here plays simply but profoundly. The lyrics wind around his weathered and worn vocals; the stories are grounded in today’s raging turmoil but instead of spitting back, he unearths kindness. Through combatting hate with love, Gallardo reflects on what can be done long-term rather than offering reactionary solutions. “I couldn’t be more proud of this album. It was one of the hardest albums of mine to make,” he says about the album, recorded primarily at Skinny Elephant in East Nashville. Expanding his songwriting palette distinctly away from solo writes, he enlists a bevy of some of the finest songwriters, from Cary Matthew Ott, Mando Saenz and Doug Williams to David Borne and Robby Hecht.

“I am truly excited to have this album finally see the light of day,” he concludes. “If I were to pick some of my favorite songs on the album, I would choose ‘Something I Gotta Learn,’ ‘Oh Jane,’ ‘The Golden Rule,’ ‘The Losing Kind’ and ‘Trains Go By.’

Still Here is out everywhere this Friday, April 27.

Listen below: