Musician Gayle Skidmore presents “The Golden West”, the title tune from her upcoming LP. The Golden West is release Number 20 for Skidmore and her first full-length in the vinyl format. The album also arrives with her third adult coloring book.
“The Golden West” marks a return to happiness for the singer-songwriter. She penned the tune during the same 2015 tour that introduced her to her husband. “The last five years of my life were a tumultuous time of loss and hardship,” she says. “My mother went through stage four cancer and a long-term relationship ended traumatically. I was able to wrestle through that time and sought healing in many places and fashions, including through songwriting and art.”
During that 2015 road trip with the acts Back Down South and Minor Birds. “We all wound up in Sonora, an old California mining town, at the venue the Gypsy Shack,” she says. Offered a place to stay by the Shack’s owners, the musicians slept on the venue’s stage that night. “Surrounded by good friends after a great show, I was inspired to pick up my banjo and write about it was to feel happy again. ‘The Golden West’ represents my resolution to no longer by bound by the confines of the past, to move forward in freedom and to hang on to what is good in my life.”
The album itself began taking shape with Skidmore’s friend James Book of Ninkasi Brewing at Ninkasi Studios in Eugene, Oregon. Sessions moved to Joshua Tree, California at Rancho De La Luna with Eagles of Death Metal’s Dave Catching. “It was fitting place to record this album,” she says, finding the desolate beauty in tune with the themes of loss and rebirth heard across the album. She wrapped the project in her hometown, San Diego with Brandon O’ Connell and Jason Begin at Singing Serpent Studios.
The song’s emotional uplift and sense of hope are evident from the earliest notes and more so as Skidmore begins singing in her powerful but understated voice. With an undeniable hook and pure emotional appeal, the song bathes the listener in optimism and bright rays of hope that shine through from start to finish.
Gayle Skidmore’s The Golden West is available for pre-order.
TRACK LIST
01. Pale Ghosts
02. Beautiful Soul
03. The Golden West
04. Hourglass
05. Long Way Home
06. How to Let You Go
07. Honeybee
08. Moving On
09. The Hallows
10. Only Ever You