Nick Shoulders - Okay, Crawdad. (VIOLET VINYL)

Format: LP, Violet Vinyl
Catalogue No.: LP-GRHL-001C
Barcode: 634457208957
Release Date: 25 Apr 2025
Genre: Americana

"Wielding an ethereal croon and masterful whistle crafted from a lifetime chasing lizards through the Ozark hills, Nick Shoulders is a living link to roots of country music with a penchant for the absurd. Combining his family's deep ties to regional traditional singing with his years of playing to crowded street corners, Nick has sought to forge a hybridized form of raucously clever country music; born of forgotten rocky hollers and bred to confront the tensions of the 21st century South. As evidenced by his surreal album art and anachronistic songwriting, Nick’s creative output is steeped in the complicated history of his beloved home of rural Arkansas, but crafted as a conscious rebuke of country music’s blind allegiance to historical seats of power and repression. With a kind word and a mean yodel, Nick hopes to put the ‘Try’ in country.

A cry out against the withering void of listless Americana, Okay, Crawdad, is the fledgling full-length album from Nick Shoulders and company. A two-step laden dose of indignation, loss and profound elation, the album is inspired as much by the chaos and decadence of south Louisiana as it is the rural sounds of yesteryear from which it sprang. Despite a pandemic-inspired relocation to his home in the Natural State, New Orleans and its community helped meld the forces at play on the album; pitting an adherence to tradition and refusal to conform against each other with grand results. Embracing the mania of the podunk zeitgeist while seeking to enfranchise the meek, Nick Shoulders is here to stay."    

A1. Rather Low  A2. Hank’s Checkout Line  A3. Too Old to Dream  A4. Miss’ippi  A5. Honey, Let’s Stay In  A6. G for Jesus  B1. Ding Dong Daddy  B2. Ira  B3. Hardly Feelings  B4. Bound and Determinded  B5. Surf de Mardi Gras  B6. The World Needs Sissies, Too