Two of the country’s most beloved vocalists have teamed up for a collaborative project, with Josh Teskey (of The Teskey Brothers) and Ash Grunwald announcing they’ll release new album Push the Blues Away in November.
To coincide with the announcement, the pair have shared lead single ‘Thinking ‘Bout Myself’, after debuting it over the weekend on the most recent episode of ABC’s live music show The Sound.
The duo recorded Push the Blues Away with Teskey Brothers guitarist Sam Teskey handling production duties at the brothers’ regional Victorian studio. It was apparently a fairly unpretentious, no-frills affair, recorded live to tape with the only percussion consisting of gospel-tinged hand claps and stomps.
Inspired by both artists’ love of blues and mutual admiration for one another’s work, the eight-track album features a handful of songs penned by Teskey and Grunwald respectively, along with two covers – Son House’s ‘Preachin’ Blues’ and ‘The Sky Is Crying’, a blues standard originally written by Elmore James. The latter actually kickstarted the project after the duo began an impromptu jam of the track during downtime between takes filming a video clip for one of Grunwald’s songs.
“Somebody filmed our little jam, and it became the seed of a great idea: Why don’t we do an acoustic blues album? No bells and whistles, something from the heart,” explains Grunwald.
“This album was made how any good blues album should be in my opinion. Spontaneously and instinctively.”
Watch Teskey and Grunwald perform ‘Thinking ‘Bout Myself’ on The Sound below. The album is out Friday, 13th November via Ivy League.
