At the heart of Donna the Buffalo is a powerful sense of love and community. Co-founded by Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins, the duo’s passion project has seen that love culminate and blossom within their music. For three decades, they’ve been getting a generation-spanning audience up and grooving in the name of societal togetherness and awareness. As much makes the name of the latest Donna the Buffalo effort—Dance in the Street—all the more fitting. The band’s first full-length album to release in five years, and it’s releasing on 9 November.
Ahead of the album’s release, Donna the Buffalo is sharing “I Believe” with PopMatters. A song developed with a simple structure set around a singular verse, its repetitive nature becomes almost hymnal in its call for unity and empowerment. A warm reminder that every individual is capable of accomplishing positive changes in their lives, the jangling roots arrangement carries power in its easygoing composition, becoming an enchanting, liberating anthem that anyone can sing along to. It’s the perfect way to close off the album with a lasting, memorable moment.
Nevins tells PopMatters, “Sometimes a few words say it all, a verse embodies a complete feeling, thought or a message. Attempting a second verse proved futile. It seemed to take away, so ‘I Believe’ became a song with one verse that seemed to say it all. A verse and chorus that repeat through the song and picks up audience members along the way. By the second time around folks are catching on to the lines and singing them with us. Like a train of faith, hope, and promise picking up passengers along the way. Believing. Believing in what? The lines are all prefaced with ‘this’ and ‘that’. ‘Is this what pulls you in, is that what puts you out.’ Believing in each one’s own personal this and that, believing we can change our lives, believing in ourselves, believing we can change the world. It feels like believing in love, and in the good, and although it says ‘I Believe’ it ends up feeling like ‘We Believe’.”
TOUR DATES
Nov. 2 — The Caribou Room — Nederland, CO
Nov. 3 — The State Room — Salt Lake City, UT
Nov 4 — Musical Instrument Museum — Phoenix, AZ
Nov. 5 — 191 Toole — Tucson, AZ
Nov. 6 — Winston’s Beach Club — San Diego, CA
Nov. 7 — Mozambique — Laguna Beach, CA
Nov. 8 — Hopmonk — Sebastopol, CA
Nov. 9 — Slim’s — San Francisco, CA
Nov. 10 — Mississippi Studios — Portland, OR
Nov. 11 — Tractor Tavern — Seattle, WA
Nov. 12 — Live From The Divide — Bozeman, MT
Nov. 14 — CSPS Hall — Cedar Rapids, IA
Nov. 15 — The Metro — Eau Claire, WI
Nov. 16 — Elevation @ The Intersection — Grand Rapids, M
INov. 17 — Live at the Ludlow Garage — Cincinnati, OH
Nov. 30 — Songbirds South — Chattanooga, TN
Dec. 1 — Shelby, NC — Don Gibson Theater
Dec. 6 — New Hope Winery — New Hope, PA
Dec. 7 — The Westcott Theater — Syracuse, NY
Dec. 8 — Anthology — Rochester, NY
Dec. 14 — Cohoes Music Hall — Cohoes, NY
Dec. 15 — Chandler Center for the Arts — Randolph, VT
Dec. 28 — City Winery — Atlanta, GA
Dec. 29 — Ponte Vedra Concert Hall — Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
Dec. 30 & 31 — Tampa, FL — Skippers Smokehouse