Colter Wall: Colter Wall (red vinyl) [LA HONDA]

Why you'll love it

This La Honda pressing comes on translucent apple red vinyl with a colour fold-out insert of lyrics and Saskatchewan prairie photos. Wall wrote every song, and Dave Cobb recorded it at Nashville's RCA Studio A.

This edition

• Red vinyl
• Fold-out insert with lyrics and photos
• Pressed in the USA
• Stereo mix

About the album

Colter Wall sounds like he's lived about three lifetimes, which is quite something for a kid from Swift Current who was 21 when he made this. That deep, gravelly baritone had already turned heads on his 2015 EP, and by 2016 he was opening for Lucinda Williams at the Ryman.

For his first full-length he went to RCA Studio A in Nashville with producer Dave Cobb, who kept things spare: Cobb on acoustic guitar, Chris Powell on drums, Mike Webb on piano and Robby Turner on pedal steel. Wall says most of the songs are autobiographical, and they play like old cowboy ballads and talking blues. "Kate McCannon" is a chilling murder ballad, "Thirteen Silver Dollars" and "Motorcycle" ramble down long prairie roads, "Snake Mountain Blues" stomps, and "Me and Big Dave" is a dusty tall tale. Turner's pedal steel drifts in and out like weather rolling over the plains.

It set up a run of records that have taken his songs into Yellowstone and beyond. All the cover photos were shot on the Saskatchewan prairies, so the view out the window comes free with purchase.

Also at Kops: more Colter Wall on vinyl · browse CDN Pop / Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On La Honda / RCA (cat# 19658-83002-1), a reissue of the 2017 album.