New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Jo Smith's debut full-length album Wyoming, slated for release on October 21, invokes vivid emotions brought about by love, loss, self-reflection, perseverance, and heartbreak. With a Rocky Mountain backdrop, the album, produced by
Brandon Hood, features songs written with legendary Nashville songsmiths Mark Nesler, Tony Martin, Dean Dillon, and more.
From the title track's haunting fiddle introduction, to the
Bobby Gentry-meets-Miranda Lambert "Broken Dishes" murder mystery story, to the intimate perfection of "No More Cowboys," Wyoming is a rarity of range and artistry in today's Tik Tok society. This beautifully inspiring piece of art has had a long journey to fruition that has been far from traditional.
"Making Wyoming has been a lifelong quest," says Smith. "My hope is that it takes listeners somewhere out west, where they want to stay a while. I grew up listening to my dad's vinyl record collection and moved to Nashville with the dream of making a record with a narrative and songs that last, I think I've done that with Wyoming."
Featuring a particularly special harmony from the one and only Vince Gill, the title track sets a tone of timelessness that the album meets again and again. In "I Like This Ring," the current focus track, Smith tells a universal story of a past relationship in a most unique and personal way.
It is followed by perhaps the most unexpected artistic offering on the record: an arrangement of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" featuring a chorus-third-verse adaptation that only a true songwriter artist could create. The album achieves Smith's musical hopes and more: it embodies the traditional ideals of country music in a never-heard-before way.
Jo Smith's songs grow out of her love for people and her love for the world around her. Smith left SMACKSongs and she began traveling around the country to play in listening rooms and small clubs. Smith also spent a year in Somalia, where she lived in a shipping container for a year in a compound in Mogadishu, the most dangerous city in the world. She wrote reports for the U.S. Department of
State Counterterrorism Bureau about the progress of Somali police and army training programs. She says, "my time in Somalia was beautiful and sad and meaningful and inspiring." Her work there enabled her to fund her forthcoming first independent album.
Named one of Rolling Stone's 10 New Artists You Need To Know in and CMT's Next Women of Country 2018-, Jo Smith is a soulful and gritty songwriter from south Georgia, and she makes music that is an extension of herself. A passionate storyteller, Jo remains inspired by the countless hours she spent spinning her dad's vast collection of vinyl records as a child growing up on her family's cattle farm. She started singing when she was 3, and by the time she was in high school Smith made a conscious decision to focus on music.
Smith has worked with RCA Records and Shane McAnnally's SMACKSongs. Her music has been a Highway Find on
Sirius XM's The Highway and was named Nashville Lifestyles' Ones to Watch and Rolling Stone Country's "New Artists You Need to Know." Smith was inducted into CMT's Next Women of Country class of 2018.
