Just what the doctor ordered to fire up this Thanksgiving weekend.
If your family is anything like mine, you love listening to live music while cooking over Thanksgiving. Until football starts, we have music or live concerts playing throughout the house. And if you’re also like me, you’re constantly turning your folks onto new artists.
Wyatt Flores is one of those names I’ve talked about while cooking, and his recently released NPR Tiny Desk concert is the perfect thing to fire up to showcase his talent to those in your home.
The Oklahoma native recently released his debut record, Welcome To The Plains. On it, he sings about the Red Dirt state he calls home and how the landscape has changed over the years, from settlers first finding shelter there to how it’s personally changed for him. During his Tiny Desk Concert, Flores highlighted four stellar tracks from that record in the small studio.
While there is no denying that Flores has had a whirlwind year playing some of his biggest shows to date and growing his following rapidly, he noted that stepping into the NPR studio for his Tiny Desk setting was one of the more never racking things he’s done in his career thus far.
“There’s been so many unbelievable things that we’ve accomplished together but this was one was so special. To be invited to play at tiny desk is a huge honor and stand in the same space with so many other amazing artists and bands I was freaking out. The night before we played I couldn’t sleep the whole night I was trying to grasp the fact more dreams were coming true and hoping I wouldn’t mess anything up which I did!
I am incredibly grateful for all the amazing places our fans have brought us and opened up doors for us to keep moving up! Thank you to my band who has worked so hard to bring these songs to life and for their constant hard work to keep pushing through. My heart is full folks I’m still not sure what I did to deserve all this but it’s not taken for granted. Thanks for believing in some Oklahoma kid and putting him here where I am today love y’all.”
Flores opened up his set with the title single off the record, keeping the energy high during the first performance before lowering it for his second song, “When I Die.” During the second portion of his set, he performed two singles he released leading up to the record’s drop, “Little Town,” before closing it out with the emotional song “Oh Susannah.”
Before diving into “Oh Susannah,” Flores shared the emotional story that inspired this song: his fanbase. Before releasing the single, he shared it with a Grand Ole Opry audience, noting that he felt like he could not help his fans enough, eventually leading to his mental health decline.
“If you have heard my music, you know I talk a whole lot about mental health. It’s just one of those things where I was just telling my story, and it led from one thing to the next. Now, I’m just telling a different chapter of where I’m at on everything.
I had to take a step back earlier this winter, and I’m glad I did. And I’m still learning because I’ve never toured harder in my life and I never realized how hard this would be. But I’m also learning boundaries, and I had no idea what co-dependent meant. Yeah…I had to take a step back because I was giving too much of everything when I wasn’t asked to be… This song is about my fan base, ‘Oh Susannah’ is my fanbase, and I wrote it for my fans. It’s my favorite song that I currently have.”
With that, he dives into the last song of his set, knocking it out of the park.
If you’re looking for a stellar live performance to watch without having to set aside an hour for a live concert, fire up Wyatt Flores’ Tiny Desk Concert. It’s well worth the twenty-ish minutes.