News

A huge Thank You! to DittyTV for premiering the video for the song “Meds” on The Curve this week, and to Sam Shansky for taking the time to ask me some great questions!

You can check out the article here

We are truly honored that “Cut To The Bone” was included in The Alternate Root Top 100 Albums for 2019!

Listen to all the albums that made the list on their Spotify Playlist

Thank you to Henry Carrigan and No Depression for including “Cut To The Bone” on
The Reading Room’s end of year list!

Read the article here

Thank you to all the readers for choosing “Cut To The Bone” as the top album of 2019!

Please check out their website and see all the amazing artists who made the top 100 albums of 2019

1. Renee Wahl’s “Cut to the Bone”
2. Chuck Hawthorne “Fire out of Stone”
3. Sofia Talvik “Paws of a Bear”
4. Chad Richard’s “Worthy Cause”
5. Amelia White’s “Rhythm of the Rain”
6. Libby Koch “Redemption 10”
7. Diana Rein “Queen of My Castle”
8. Gurf Morlix’ “Impossible Blue”
9. The HawtThorns “Morning Sun”
10. Eddie Heinzelman “Wherever You Go”
11. Ashley Sofia “Shades of Blue”
12. Dylan LeBlanc “Renegade”
13. The Truehearts “Songs For Spike”
14. Chuck Mead “Close to Home”
15. Linda McRae “Going to the Well”
16. Molly Thomas “Honey’s Fury”
17. Linda McRae’s “Rough Edges and Ragged Hearts”
18. Nils Lofgren’s “Blue With Lou”
19. Tyler Childers’ “Country Squire”
20. Samantha Fish “Kill or Be Kind”
21. Steve Earle “Guy”
22. Helene Cronin “Old Ghosts and Lost Causes”
23. Emily Duff’s “Hallelujah Hello”
24. Mavericks “Play The Hits”
25. The Highwomen
26. Kaz Murphy’s “Ride Out the Storm”
27. Bruce Springsteen “Western Stars”
28. Andrew Adkins’ “Who I Am”
29. Sturgill Simpson “Sound and Fury”
30. Cody Jinks “The Wanting”
31. Willie Nelson “Ride Me Back Home”
32. Marley’s Ghost “Travelin’ Shoes”
33. The Long Ryders “Psychedelic Country Soul”
34. Will Bennett & The Tells – “All Your Favorite Songs”
35. Rodney Crowell “TEXAS”
36. Lukas Nelson “Turn Off the News”
37. Delbert McClinton “Tall Dark & Handsome”
38. Tedeschi Trucks’ “Signs”
39. Avett Brothers “Closer Than Together”
40. Rod Picott “Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil”
41. Eilen Jewell “Gypsy”
42. Mavis Staples w/Ben Harper “We Get By”
43. Gary Clark Jr’s “This Land”
44. Keb’ Mo’ “Oklahoma”
45. Rhiannon Giddens’ et al: “Songs of our Native Daughters”
46. Buddy and Julie Miller “Breakdown….”
47. Jimbo Mathus “Incinerator”
48. Townes Van Zandt “Sky Blue”
49. Hayes Carll’s “What It Is”
50. Neil Young “Colorado”
51. Allman Betts Band “Down to the River”
52. Tanya Tucker “While I’m Livin”
53. Will Kimbrough’s “I Like it Down Here”
54. Todd Snider’s “Cash Cabin Sessions Vol. 3”
55. Sheryl Crow ~ “Threads”
56. Billy Strings Home
57. Mandolin Orange’s “Tides of a Teardrop”
58. Patty Griffin’s “Patty Griffin”
59. Seth Walker’s “Are You Open?”
60. Allison Moorer “Blood”
61. Wilco “Ode to Joy”
62. South Austin Moonlighters “Travel Light”
63. Tiffany Williams’ “When You Go”
64. Chip & Tony Kinman “Sounds Like Music”
65. Molly Tuttle’s “When You’re Ready”
66. Michael Braunfeld’s “Driver”
67. Son Volt’s “Union”
68. Dave Alvin “King of California” remastered
69. Neil Young/1973 Tuscaloosa
70. Ian Noe “Between the Country”
71. Ryan Bingham’s “American Love Song”
72. JJ Cale’s “Stay Around”
73. John Paul White’s “The Hurting Kind”
74. Shawn Colvin “Steady (30th Annie)”
75. Jimmie Vaughan “Baby, Please Come Home”
76. M. Lockwood Porter “Communion in the Ashes”
77. Chris Knight “Almost Daylight”
78. Senora May Lainheart
79. Them Coulee Boys “Die Happy”
80. Rosie Flores’ “Simple Case of the Blues”
81. The 40 Acre Mule “Goodnight & Good Luck”
82. Drivin N Cryin “Live the Love Beautiful”
83. Malin Pettersen “Alonesome”
84. North Mississippi Allstars “Up and Rolling”
85. Jim Lauderdale “From Another World”
86. Anderson East “Alive in Tennessee”
87. Yola’s “Walk Through Fire”
88. Kinky Friedman “Resurrection”
89. Justin Townes Earle “The Saint of Lost Causes”
90. Tommy Emmanuel and John Knowles’ “Heart Songs”
91. Alice Wallace’s “Into the Blue”
92. NRBQ “Turn On, Tune In”
93. Lillie Mae “Other Girls”
94. Josh Ritter’s “Fever Breaks”
95. Robert Mark Abrahams “Matinee”
96. The Dead South “Sugar & Joy”
97. Jesse Dayton “Mixtape Vol 1”
98. Mike and the Moonpies “Cheap Silver and Solid Country Gold”
99. Annie and Rod Capps “When They Fall”
100. Western States “From the Center Out”

We had such a great time with Michael Gaither recording an episode for his podcast “Songs and Stories”.
You can check out our episode (#188) on his website, or on Stitcher or iTunes.

http://www.michaelgaither.com/home/songs-and-stories-188-nashvilles-renee-wahl/

The “Songs and Stories” podcast started as a way to explore about the stories behind the songs. The show quickly evolved into a series of informal chats with songwriters. It’s a fun mix of shop talk, promo, and live performances.

Read at Pasadena Weekly

Singer-songwriter Renee Wahl laughs often — especially when admitting she likes to “geek out” on the science behind how music affects us psychologically. A physics major who served in the Air Force and taught physics to audio engineers, she quotes Einstein (“imagination is more important than knowledge”) while connecting science and songwriting.

“People tend to think of science as this hard, concrete, boring thing, but it’s really not. It’s not that knowledge isn’t important, but even in science there’s a creative aspect, as there is in songwriting. If you’re just looking at songwriting or science from the perspective of formula, you’re not creating anything new.”

Wahl’s touring behind her smartly composed new album, “Cut to the Bone,” recorded with Lucinda Williams guitarist Stuart Mathis at his home studio and a deft band that fleshes out the music’s rootsy tension and release. Songs like “Six Days Til Sunday,” the sultry “Temptation” and “Cold Day in Memphis” depict characters grappling with desires that can get the better of them, as Wahl moans like a tougher Kelly Willis over steel-buffed waves of guitar, organ and strings.

Wahl, who lives with “horses, a donkey, and a bunch of dogs” on 37 acres outside of Nashville, pointedly avoids staking out political positions. Yet her song “To the Bone” is political, at least insofar as it concerns “people that try to make you think they’re going to fix all your problems, and really they’re only in it for themselves.”

“Well, you come around here, black Cadillac and all

The right time, the right place, and the answer to their call

They drop to their knees begging, ‘Rescue me’

But I’m not falling for your deal even though it would be so easy”

“People choose who they want to follow based on what they’re being told they’re gonna get from them, and across the board, people have their own agendas. Whether it’s a politician, a lover, or a religious leader, they tend to gravitate to those positions of power because they may already be a little corrupt, or they become corrupt because of those positions of power. It’s not all black and white.”

Her song “Meds,” which humorously shuffles through a “virtual rainbow” of antidepressant medications, has elicited positive responses from audiences — even though, Wahl acknowledges with a laugh, she gets the impression that “some people aren’t sure if they should respond to it … It’s a funny song about a very serious subject.”

“I tend to write a little on the dark side, and this is probably the darkest collection I’ve had,” she says of the album. “It has this theme of really looking deep at yourself and others, and what’s going on in our life and the world, looking at both the positive and negative and not necessarily painting things in a pretty picture. There’s no sugarcoating.”

– Bliss Bowen, Pasadena Weekly

Read at TJ Music

Renee Wahl belts out a gritty, bluesy style of Country Noir that explores the dark corners of the human condition. Changing roles from the doting partner (“Me Before You”) to the tempting Siren (“Temptation”) to the heartless black widow (“To The Bone,”) Wahl promises to “put you before me,” before boasting that she’ll “cut you to the bone.” Maybe the song “Meds” explains her change in demeaner as “we’re just adjusting my meds.” Or perhaps she’s a metaphor for life’s ups and downs that can drag you through Hell before they lead you to Heaven. Either way, with Wahl’s sensual voice it’s a ride you’ll want to take.

Summer Playlist Must Have: “Cold Day In Memphis”

An enigmatic tryst involving a couple just south of the law plays out in the back streets of Memphis. The lyrics are purposely vague, but the voice is beautifully clear; and the mood is vintage Hollywood noir.

Thank you to all the readers for choosing “Cut To The Bone” as the top album for the month of March!

Please check out their website and see all the amazing artists who released albums last month, and be sure to listen to their Spotify playlist

1) Renee Wahl’s “Cut to the Bone”

2) Dan Navarro’s “Shed My Skin”

3) Eric Bolander’s “The Wind”

4) Michael Braunfeld’s “Driver”

5) Andrew Adkins’ “Who I Am”

6) Todd Snider’s “Cash Cabin Sessions Vol. 3”

7) Steve Earle’s “Guy”

8) Patty Griffin’s “Patty Griffin”

9) Townes Van Zandt’s “Sky Blue”

10) Jane Kramer’s “Valley of the Bones”

Readers’ Favorite Top Ten Releases For March 2019, With Playlist

Click Here to Read at AP

Renee Wahl digs deep on evocative Americana set

Renee Wahl and the Sworn Secrets, “Cut to the Bone” (Double R Records)

The first sound of Renee Wahl’s voice on her fine new album is enough to set off the comparisons to Rosanne Cash.

The opener is “To the Bone,” and the song’s first line even includes a black Cadillac, which of course was in the title of one of Cash’s best albums. Wahl’s “Cut to the Bone” has more in common with Cash’s fiery, passionate earlier work, and yet it sets itself apart with an intensity all its own.

For all that, though, her voice has the same kind of let-me-tell-you-something urgency that set Cash apart. There’s the vivid writing, too, when she describes “the smell of chicken and gasoline” on “Cold Day in Memphis.”

But Wahl, an Air Force veteran and physicist who is also a teacher, demonstrates the capacity to dig deep. There’s the edge of anger mixed with warmth and regret, as on the title cut and “From Here to There,” a song set on a long drive across Texas as she daydreams about a man she knew in Ireland.

“Me Before You” is a cleverly structured ballad with an evocative melody. “In the Field” describes lying in a field where a soldier has died, set against an understated but persistent military drum cadence.

Despite the similarities to Cash, this is an ambitious, fresh contribution to the Americana canon. The songs are well thought out and finely crafted, and several of them seem likely to endure.

– Scott Stroud

Read the Review at American Standard Time

Continuing 2019’s great identity revolution, Renee Wahl‘s album re-defines the outlaw right away on To The Bone’s title track offering “I’ll string you up and strip you down” to a wayward lover. It’s not so much what Wahl says –relationship troubles have long been the playground of country music– it’s the way she says it. Wahl performs from a point of power whether dealing with delinquent lovers or her own mental health, as on “Meds” which stands out on a stellar album as a post modern country cousin to Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill”.  Throughout the album Wahl’s songs ring out with her voice and her sense of autonomy.

Her song characters range from Jerry Lee’s muse on “Cold Day In Memphis”, to temptation itself on “Temptation”, and her lyrics navigate life’s strange avenues free of shame. Backed by a bang up country band The Sworn Secrets, she’s able to cross story lines from “cocaine for breakfast” on “Six Days Til Sunday” to an unlikely new mother on “Me Before You”.

On “What You Need” Wahl takes an interesting twist on cheatin’ songs –as a compassionate, rational, jilted lover offering “I’ll stay here and take it, I’ve been the strong one before, & if you need something more, you can learn the hard way”.

Wahl is doing what outlaw country artists do best: blazing paths in songwriting with mythical folk tales based on unflinching observation.