New York, NY (Top40 Charts) On August 31, the funky Donnie Fritts returns with June: a personal and emotional tribute to his best friend, the late, great Muscle Shoals R&B legend Arthur Alexander. The album was produced by John Paul White and Ben Tanner and was recorded in the evenings at the original location of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.
Today, Fritts shares "I'd Do It Over Again," the second song to be released from the forthcoming album.
Stream the song via Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/single-lock/donnie-fritts-id-do-it-over-again
"That song came from a weekend of writing with Arthur. I got him to come down to Nashville from Cleveland, where he was living at the time. We wrote 'If It's Really Gotta Be This Way' with Gary Nicholson and we wrote 'I'd Do It Over Again' with Dan Penn. It's the last song I ever wrote with Arthur," explains Fritts. "It was a really great weekend of writing. We just went over to Dan's house and got together and came up with it. I think it was 1992."
June is now available for pre-order via Single Lock Records and includes instant downloads of "You Better Move On" and "I'd Do It Over Again."
"His name was Arthur Alexander, Junior," Fritts explains. "That's why we called him June."
June opens with the title track, a song that Fritts penned in 1993 on the ride back to Muscle Shoals from the Nashville hospital where
Alexander succumbed to complications from a heart attack. "My heart was broken, but I wanted to express how I felt about him," Fritts says. "So I did it the only way I knew how— I wrote a song for him."
The personnel from Fritts' critically acclaimed 2015 release, Oh My Goodness, return to backup the "Alabama Leaning Man" on June: John Paul White on guitar and vocals,
David Hood on bass, Ben Tanner on keyboards, Reed Watson on drums and
Kelvin Holly on electric guitar.
Laura and Lydia Rogers from The Secret Sisters provide harmonies, while Kimi Samson and Caleb Elliott provide violin and cello, respectively.
"It was such an honor to do this album," Fritts explains. "I hope this album will mean as much to listeners as it does to me and my family."
Donnie Fritts is a Florence, Ala. native and one of many local musical luminaries. He's a lauded songwriter, noted for his tracks "We Had It All" (recorded by scores of artists from
Waylon Jennings and
Dolly Parton to Ray Charles) and "Breakfast in Bed" which he co-wrote with Eddie Hinton for Dusty Springfield's album Dusty in Memphis. He played and travelled with Kris Kristofferson's band for nearly 20 years, and has released four previous albums-- Prone to Lean, Everybody's Got a Song, the Dan Penn-produced One Foot in the Groove and Oh My Goodness, his first release for Florence, Alabama's Single Lock Records.
Tracklist:
1) June
2) In The Middle of It All
3) You Better Move On
4) All The Time
5) I'd Do It Over Again
6) Come Along With Me
7) Lonely Just Like Me
8) Soldier of Love
9) Thank God He Came
10) Adios Amigo
