Like every performer, Jason Eady played his fair share of early-career bar gigs, sharing his music with more staff than patrons. His new song “Saturday Night” — premiering exclusively via The Boot — recalls those scenes over an appropriately calm (quiet, even) melody.
Eady co-wrote “Saturday Night” with his wife, fellow singer-songwriter Courtney Patton. “I was trying to set the scene of playing to an empty room, and what that really feels like,” Eady explains of how the song plays out musically as he calls out the goings-on in the bar.
Eady spent many of those just-starting-out days at Lil’ Red’s Longhorn Saloon in Fort Worth, Texas. “As tough as some of those times were,” he says, “I loved every minute of it and met some great characters along the way.”
“Saturday Night” is one of 10 songs on To the Passage of Time, Eady’s forthcoming new album. The artist worked on the project, his eighth full-length record, with Band of Heathens member Gordy Quist as producer and some of Eady’s beloved collaborators: drummer Brian Ferguson, mandolin and fiddle player Noah Jeffries, dobro and steel player Geoff Queen and upright bassist and cello player Mark Williams.
“We started every song with just me on guitar, and if someone felt like they had a part to add, they had to come forward and say what they heard there,” Eady explains. “Everything was built from the ground up, and because of that, there’s no filler — nobody playing to show off or take up space.”
Eady grew up in Jackson, Miss., and is now based in Fort Worth, where he moved after a stint in the Air Force. His debut album, From Underneath the Old, arrived in 2005.
To the Passage of Time follows 2018’s I Travel On and is due out on Aug. 27; further information is available at JasonEady.com. There, fans can also find more details on the just-announced Jason Eady Music Club — a subscription platform that will help the artist share unreleased tracks, from demos and acoustic and live performances to cover songs and brand-new, never-before-heard songs — and his forthcoming tour dates.
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