Award-winning singer/songwriter Mark Erelli has released “A Little Kindness,” a track from his forthcoming LP Blindsided, due out March 27th via Soundly Music. “Boston-based musician Mark Erelli is known for both his songwriting acumen and his ability to bring that talent to co-writing sessions with other recordings artists,” American Songwriter said in its premiere. “For Erelli, music is a way to appreciate the world and the people in his life. And perhaps most acutely, the practice of music has taught Erelli the beauty of sublimation and reinforced the joy of helping others achieve their dreams, which, in turn, helps Erelli also achieve his.” "A Little Kindness" was penned in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting and Tom Petty's passing. “The night Tom Petty died, I was scrolling through social media looking to commiserate with fellow fans,” Erelli explains. “Singer/songwriter Joe Pug suggested that the best way to celebrate Petty’s legacy would be to stop mourning and go write a song. I know good advice when I see it, and wrote this song in one sitting.”
LISTEN: “A LITTLE KINDNESS”
Erelli has forged a colorful career by making the art of “being everywhere all the time” seem effortless. It’s hard to think of another artist who seems equally at home serving as a sideman for GRAMMY-winning artists like Paula Cole, Marc Cohn, and Josh Ritter, or producing albums for Lori McKenna, as he does writing and producing his own material, like last year’s “By Degrees,” on which he was joined by a host of voices including Rosanne Cash and Sheryl Crow. That song was nominated for “Song Of The Year” at the 2019 Americana Music Awards, and served to reintroduce Erelli to a wider audience. And just in time, because Blindsided combines the exuberance of Erelli’s signature sound with the wisdom that comes with over 20 years of songwriting, capturing an artist at a point in his career where he is clearly digging deep and swinging for the fences.
Blindsided, a step in a different sonic direction for Erelli, is an unflinching examination of the distance between innocence and experience. The album was forged in a process of reckoning, of taking stock of the soul, and being pleasantly surprised. Mining the same gritty yet soulful territory as John Hiatt’s Bring The Family or Bonnie Raitt’s Nick Of Time, Erelli contemplates the delicate tension between love and commitment, faith and family, disillusionment and hope. But this isn’t a confession from the therapist’s couch, it’s rock ’n roll, and Erelli is clearly taking his cues from heroes like Petty and Prine. To create the soundtrack that reflected this reinvigorated approach to songwriting, Erelli consulted his mental list of fellow musicians with whom he had forged connections in recent years, and realized they all lived in Nashville. So, he made the trek to the Music City, with best friend and multi-instrumentalist/producer Zachariah Hickman in tow, curious to see what effect a change in geography, personnel, and context would produce. With the help of drummer Jamie Dick (Rhiannon Giddens, Our Native Daughters), guitarist Sadler Vaden (Jason Isbell, Josh Ritter), Kai Welch (Molly Tuttle, Kacey Musgraves) on keys, producer Hickman on bass, and Dan Knobler (Lake Street Dive, Caroline Spence) recording and mixing, the result couldn’t have been more unanticipated. Against the backdrop of Blindsided’s hungrier, hook-laden sound, with the inspired addition of a string quartet on half of the album, Erelli has never sounded more passionate or vital. Over the course of Blindsided’s 11 tracks, the message of each song is distilled to its purest form, as fearlessly honest in perspective as it is straightforward in its delivery.
TOUR DATES
1/31/ - Jupiter Hall - Manchester, NH
2/3 & 2/4 - Club Passim - Cambridge, MA
2/13 - Greenwich Odeum - East Greenwich, RI
2/14 - New York Society For Ethical Culture - New York, New York
2/28 - Port City Music Hall - Portland, ME
3/5 - Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation - Waltham, MA
3/6 - The Stone Church - Brattleboro, VT
3/7 - Narrows Center For The Arts - Fall River, MA
3/20 - The Ark - Ann Arbor, MI
3/21 - The Kent Stage - Kent, OH
4/29 - Rogue Theatre - Grants Pass, OR
4/30 - Aladdin Theater - Portland, OR
5/1 - Historic Everett Theatre - Everett, WA
5/2 - McMenamins Elks Temple - Tacoma, WA
5/6 - Rockwood Music Hall - New York, NY
5/8 - The Parlor Room - Northampton, MA
5/9 - Club Passim - Cambridge, MA
5/12 - Woodbury Brewing Company - Woodbury, CT
5/13 - One Longfellow Square - Portland, ME
5/14 - Caffe Lena - Saratoga Springs, NY
5/15 - The Word Barn - Exeter, NH