Americana’s Monica Rizzio and Mindy Smith Join Forces on “While With You” (premiere)

Monica Rizzio and Mindy Smith met in the early 2000s, but it’s almost at the turn of another new decade that the Americana artists are finally co-writing. “While With You” is a love song that sinks into its soothing groove early, with beautiful mandolin-driven instrumentation filling the spaces between the layered serenity of Rizzio and Smith’s vocal performance. The song represents the heart of Rizzio’s upcoming album, Sunshine Is Free, so driven by the simple concept of the little things in life serving a healing, cumulative whole. “While With You” serves to this point by being precisely about lingering with the one that you love without necessarily actively pursuing any other goal, but being content.

Rizzio recalls, “When I look back to the day that Mindy and I wrote ‘While With You’, it just fell out of us like a sun shower over a couple of hours. Despite a two decade long friendship, sharing a few stages, and some late nights, we had never written a song together. During those two decades we somehow both learned the same lessons about love, the power it has had on our lives, and how grateful we are to have those we love in our lives. I still can’t escape the melody of ‘While With You’ and is by far my favorite song to sing on the album. I just wish Mindy was on stage singing it with me every time.”

Smith adds, “One of my favorite things about writing is when I get to sit down with a good friend and search for a song. Even better are those days when I get to sit down with a good friend to search for a song and together we wind up with one that seems like it just fell onto the page. ‘While With You’ was one of those writes. Add Monica’s rich and soothing voice taking the lead and a song doesn’t get sweeter or more compelling.”

Sunshine Is Free is due out on 4 October.