WATCH: David Gideon’s “Red Boots”

David Gideon mixes southwestern storytelling and old-country twang on Lonesome Desert Strum. Recorded here in Nashville and largely written in the American Southwest, the record will be released January 28, 2022 on Gideon Music House.

Lonesome Desert Strum makes room for honky-tonk barn burners, campfire ballads, southern slow dances, and rootsy rave-ups. Gluing that sound together is an artist who’s every bit as colorful as the songs he writes. Born to artistic parents, Gideon grew up on the move, bouncing between Austin, Key West, and The Farm — an infamous hippie commune in rural Tennessee — during his early years. Before relocating to Billy The Kid’s hometown of Silver City, New Mexico, Gideon enjoyed a Jack Kerouac-worthy whirl of escapes and one-of-a-kind experiences, working as a club DJ one minute and logging multiple years as a ranch hand in Northern California the next.

Although proudly based in New Mexico, Gideon recorded Lonesome Desert Strum here in Nashville, where he was joined by some of the most legendary musicians in American roots music. Dave Roe, Kenny Vaughan, Steve Hinson , Billy Contreras, Pete Abbott, and Chris Scruggs all appear on the record, adding layers of fiddle, breezy percussion, and expert guitar work to Gideon’s songs.

Gideon turns Lonesome Desert Strum into an album about vices, victories, and heartaches, delivered with the conviction of a man who’s lived the high life, low life, and everything between. “Woman Like Her” is a loping, lovesick song fit for western saloons and southern dancehalls, while “Wings of an Angel” makes room for a spacey, tremolo-heavy guitar riff that’s as wide as the desert sky itself. “Ashes,” one of two tracks co-written with chart-topping songwriter Wood Newton, salutes country icons like the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, and “Drifter” unfolds like a travelogue from a rambling troubadour who’s spent much of life on the move.

Watch David Gideon’s video “Red Boots” filmed at The Nashville Palace above.