Ricky and Micol Davis are a rare “double pair” indeed. The two musicians have been together for two decades — both in a traditional sense as husband and wife, and in a much more nontraditional fashion as the genre-bending duo Blue Mother Tupelo. Specializing in delivering a true Southern sound, the Davises are poised to release their fourth studio album, Only Sunshine, on May 20.
Only Sunshine follows their critically acclaimed 2009 set Heaven And Earth, an album that shook up the hard-to-impress Americana community by debuting right behind Kris Kristofferson at No. 2 on the Euro Americana Chart, and hitting the Top 40 on Americana radio in the States.
Only Sunshine was engineered/recorded by Ricky Davis at the couple’s home studio, JukeTonk Studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee. The album was produced by Ricky and co-produced by Micol. Ricky played most of the instruments on the album except for the horns, fiddle, violins, piano, and keyboards. Micol played the piano, keyboards and hand percussion. Both Ricky and Micol handle all the vocal parts. With the new release, Blue Mother Tupelo remains dedicated to its blend of Southern roots, country soul, and a touch of retro rock. The result is, in the couple’s own words, “Pretty personal…a celebration of life, natural and honest.”
As they explain: “Our focus throughout our musical lives has been to stay true to our souls, first and foremost. Only Sunshine reflects this. We are always trying to create new organic sounds when we are recording in the studio. The main difference between Only Sunshine and our earlier albums is that we co-wrote half of the songs with other writers who we admire. We didn’t set out to write these songs with them for our album, but these songs really fit where we are in our life experience right now, so we included them on our album.”
“This album is a 3-D album to me, personally,” says Ricky. “The stories in the songs, the sounds we made while recording this album, the whole thing is more three-dimensional. We really wanted to record this as live as possible; singing and playing just like we do live — except that after doing the initial tracks in a live manner, we added other instruments to those initial tracks. And some other musicians came into our studio and did a wonderful job on their parts.”
While preparing for release date, Blue Mother Tupelo is keeping busy touring, hitting a slate of dates spanning Tennessee, Mississippi, and Georgia through to early Fall.
“It’s exciting and so cool to be able to reach people and new horizons through our music, sharing the truths of living our lives in this world together,” they note. “And it’s been wonderful having the opportunity to create these songs with our talented co-writers and musicians on this album. We’re so happy to spread a soulful word out into the world.”
Like their music itself, the pair’s mission is straightforward and genuine:“We want to reach as many hungry music lovers as possible with Only Sunshine and make a soulful connection with the listeners and their hearts, and we’d love to meet many music lovers along the way of our lives’ journeys. We definitely want people to know that our music actually exists so that they are given the chance to hear it, live with it, turn it up and play it!”
For more information, please visit www.bluemothertupelo.com
