30 April
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Twangtown Paramours
(£9 / £10)
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Nashville-based husband-and-wife duo Mike
T. Lewis and MaryBeth Zamer, known on stage as The Twangtown
Paramours, have made a name for themselves defying boundaries with their
award-winning catalogue of Americana, Folk, and Blues anthems. With a slew
of accolades for their first three full-length albums, they’ve earned a
loyal following, balancing serious instrumental and vocal chops with witty
stage banter and a lighthearted approach to life. With their third album, Double
Down on a Bad Thing, The Twangtown Paramours
shifted gears to showcase a full band, electric, groove-oriented, upbeat,
soul-infused, and retro blues sound. Their soon-to-be released fourth
album, The Wind Will Change Again, is an acoustic Folk record
consisting of a collection of songs that the Twangers call their best to
date.
Hit songwriter, session musician, and
producer Mike Lewis was born in NYC, but his sound is informed by a mix of
experiences across the country’s major music centers, including NYC, L.A.,
Austin, and Nashville. He began learning classical and jazz guitar at age
eight, studying under Leonid Bolotine, William
Matthews, and Barry Galbraith, before earning degrees at Columbia in New
York City and the Grove School of Music in Los Angeles. He wrote a #1
platinum pop hit ranked the 2nd biggest-selling female ballad of all time
in Korea, and occasionally plays upright bass for Jimmie Dale
Gilmore.
Born in Washington D.C., lead singer
MaryBeth Zamer was raised on a mix of opera and American songbook music,
singing along to Dean Martin and Ella Fitzgerald, before discovering Little
Feat, Bonnie Raitt, and the blues in high school. A fixture in the Washington,
D.C. club scene for years, MaryBeth performed with popular local cover
band, Ignition and sang backup vocals for Eva Cassidy’s band, Method Actor.
“Eva was a huge influence on my singing style,” MaryBeth says. “She taught
me to go beyond having fun and hitting the right notes, to sing in a way
that conveys real emotion.”
MaryBeth and Mike met and started dating
in 2009, while both were working on separate musical projects. “The
relationship came first,” says MaryBeth, “but I kept hearing songs he’d
written that I loved, and I wanted to add my own vocal spin to them. I felt
like I could interpret and deliver Mike’s songs the way he intended them to
be.” The Twangtown Paramours released their debut
self-titled album via Inside Edge Records just a year later in 2010, a
well-received, pop-infused folk album that rose to #11 on the Folk charts.
In 2012, they released their second full-length project, The Promise of
Friday Night, a narrative-driven, acoustic folk album that hit #2 on
the Folk charts, #150 on the Americana charts, and #7 on Deep Roots
Magazine’s top 50 albums of 2012. In the following years, the pair
became three-time finalists at the Kerrville New Folk Competition in
Kerrville, TX and winners of the Wildflower Contest in Richardson, TX. They
also had the honor to open for major acts such as Joe Ely, Claire Lynch,
and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
In February of 2022, their third album, Double
Down on a Bad Thing came in at #11 on the UK indie Blues chart and #18
on the U.S. RMR Contemporary Blues chart. The Christmas bonus track was
played over 215,000 in 16,000 U.S. stores and malls last December, and
another song from the album is currently being played about 60,000 times a
week in over 20,000 U.S. stores and malls.
In addition to their elaborate musical
pedigrees and critically-acclaimed release history, what makes The Twangtown Paramours unique is the purity of their
priorities: They are committed to making top-notch music. Their new album, The
Wind Will Change Again, released to the public and to radio in the U.S.
and U.K. on January 3, 2025, is an acoustic exploration of some of the best
songs the duo has written and that they often play live. Included on the
album are emotional and thoughtful songs such as “The Garden” and “Old
Friends”, the fun-loving bluegrass influenced tune, “Sincerely Yours No
More,” and heartbreaking ballads co-written with well-known Nashville
songwriters, Paul Craft and Fred Koller. Also on the album are two of the
Twangers’ favorite songs to perform live: Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s “Tonight I
Think I’m Gonna Go Downtown” and Adam
Schlesinger’s “That Thing You Do.”
The Wind Will Change Again also features some of the best musicians to be found
anywhere. Players include Rick Lonow (Poco)on
drums and percussion, Grammy winner Jim VanCleve on fiddle and viola, Rave
Tesar (keyboardist and music director for the band, Renaissance), Ed
Alstrom (renowned session pianist and organist), and #1 accordion Nashville
session player Jeff Taylor.
The Wind Will Change Again was acoustically and eclectically produced by Mike
Lewis with songs that run the gamut of emotions from fun to heart-breaking
to the philosophical. This is what David McGee, editor of Deep Roots
Magazine had to say about the upcoming album: "In the performances’
acoustic majesty, we hear the Twangtown Paramours
as we’ve not heard them before, thereby bringing into bold relief the depth
of their messages and the beauty of their art. Right on time for a most
chaotic time in our collective history, The Wind Will Change Again is built
to last. And so it will.
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