National flatpicking champion Tyler releases his seventh album, with prodigious technique and strong songwriting from start to finish.
~ Courtesy of Sarah J Frost Public Relations
Celebrated guitarist and National Flatpicking Champion Tyler Grant is releasing his seventh album, aptly titled Flatpicker, on March 28. The last single from the album, “Coming Home to Stay” is now out on streaming platforms with the full album to follow.
“It’s a burner of a bluegrass song that tells the story of a rambling musician who has resolved to settle down,” Grant says. “He’s realizing that ‘the grass ain’t greener on the other side and this old fence is just breaking my stride.”
The song follows the release of “Goat Canyon Trestle” last month. “It tells the story of the largest wooden trestle ever built, which still stands in the Mojave Desert of Eastern San Diego County,” Grant told The Bluegrass Situation. “It’s also about the “Impossible Railroad” conceived by sugar and shipping magnate John D. Spreckels in 1906 and completed in 1919. History songs are tricky, and I am very proud of this one. The moral of the story is: If you take on the desert, it will always win.”
Grant spent years touring with Abigail Washburn, Adrienne Young & Little Sadie, as well as the Drew Emmitt Band (co-founder of Leftover Salmon), which subsequently evolved into the Emmitt-Nershi Band (featuring Bill Nershi of The String Cheese Incident). These Colorado-based acts lured him to the Rocky Mountains, where he has lived since 2009. He’ll play two local album release shows, on March 22 at Swallow Hill Music in Denver, and April 18 at eTown Hall in Boulder.
On Flatpicker, pieces like “Canyon Flatpicking,” “Where The Ocotillo Grows” and “Sea Of Cortez” portray images of wild places, and others like “Coming Home to Stay,” “The Beholder,” “Turn The Page,” “Waning Moon,” and “Orange Street” tell of the human experience of longing for home and personal connection. “The Tuk-Tuk,” “Depot Guitar,” and “Goat Canyon Trestle” tell stories of more musical adventures in the realm of civilization.
