{"id":2338,"date":"2021-02-01T15:30:25","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T15:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/?p=2338"},"modified":"2021-01-27T20:21:45","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T20:21:45","slug":"americana-folk-singer-songwriter-hope-dunbar-to-release-new-album-sweetheartland-on-april-2-2021-album-is-rife-with-hope-resignation-candor-craft-and-vast-new-american-prairie-style-reson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/americana-folk-singer-songwriter-hope-dunbar-to-release-new-album-sweetheartland-on-april-2-2021-album-is-rife-with-hope-resignation-candor-craft-and-vast-new-american-prairie-style-reson\/","title":{"rendered":"Americana-folk singer-songwriter Hope Dunbar to release new album, “Sweetheartland,” on April 2, 2021 | Album is rife with hope, resignation, candor, craft, and vast New American Prairie-style resonance"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Immediate Release
\nFebruary 1, 2021<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Americana-folk singer-songwriter Hope Dunbar to release new album,\u00a0Sweetheartland<\/em>, on April 2, 2021<\/p>\n

Album is rife with hope, resignation, candor, craft, and vast New American Prairie-style resonance<\/b><\/p>\n

Nebraska-based Americana-folk singer-songwriter Hope Dunbar is set to release her new album,\u00a0Sweetheartland<\/em>, on April 2, 2021. Recorded in Nashville before the pandemic hit, it\u2019s her second full-length, and it was produced by Zack Smith (one-half of the celebrated duo Smooth Hound Smith), Jesse Thompson, and Dunbar herself.\u00a0Sweetheartland\u00a0<\/em>takes listeners om a journey through stories lifted from everyday routine and secret dreams.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mission in this project was to fully realize my own strength and identity as a songwriter,\u201d says Dunbar. \u201cI gave myself permission to have fun, to be humorous, to be frustrated and intense, to be sexual, powerful, hopeful, and sad. As a small-town preacher\u2019s wife, I had been kind of tentative with my identity on my previous album,\u00a0Three Black Crows<\/em>. It just felt unbecoming for me to express feminine, sexual power on a record. But I\u2019ve always had a sense of rebellion, so this time I just decided to put that out there, along with everything else.\u00a0Three Black Crows<\/em>\u00a0has the spirit of asking for permission, a feeling of tentativeness. My intention with\u00a0Sweetheartland\u00a0<\/em>was to walk in and say, \u2018I\u2019m not asking your permission. I\u2019m doing what I want to do. I am fully empowered, and I\u2019m choosing to make this record.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Through song, Dunbar transforms the mundane into the magical. A pioneer of the New American Prairie Style (Americana mixed with country-folk), she is known for her lyrics, and\u00a0Sweetheartland\u00a0<\/em>does not disappoint in that regard. \u201cA gift card to a gasoline station is not a valentine,\u201d she admonishes some dim bulb on \u201cWhat Were You Thinking?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t need a cage; I\u2019ve forgotten how to run,\u201d she mourns on \u201cDust.\u201d Daring to hope for something beyond farmland, she sees the highway as \u201cwhere the wife with a black eye places all of her chips\u201d on \u201cThe Road Is\u201d and insists \u201c\u2018more\u2019 ain\u2019t a four-letter word\u201d on the last track, \u201cMore.\u201d Even her homage, \u201cJohn Prine,\u201d illuminates both his genius and her restless introspection: \u201cI\u2019m flipping through the pages of a waiting room magazine while the clock keeps on ticking like a pickaxe steadily chipping away at the vision of who I thought I could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its hope and resignation, its candor, craft, and vast Midwestern Americana resonance, and certainly in its insight and poetry,\u00a0Sweetheartland\u00a0<\/em>was born of the time of soul-searching and introspection that followed the release of\u00a0Three Black Crows<\/em>\u00a0and the promotional push that accompanied it, particularly on the road. \u201cThings got so overwhelming because the hustle became more important than the artistry,\u201d Dunbar recalls. \u201cBy the summer of 2018, I was thinking, \u2018I\u2019m not in love with music the way I was prior to my last record.\u2019 I wasn\u2019t expecting that, and it was a little jarring.\u201d Something had to change, and Dunbar began looking hard at where she was and what had to be done. With help from a life coach, she found the right questions to ask and then looked for answers. \u201cI wound up on a new path of taking ownership of my musical journey,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d been saying yes to every voice giving me advice on what I should do. So, I learned not to listen to those voices. Now I\u2019m not going to do anything anybody tells me to do\u2026 unless I know I really want to.\u201d<\/p>\n

With her sister-in-law Emily, Dunbar launched a weekly podcast they called \u201cPrompt Queens.\u201d Each week they would agree on a new \u201cprompt\u201d \u2014 a person, a band, a movie, even just a word. Then each would spend the week writing her own song based on that prompt, which they would premiere and discuss on the next episode. Dunbar began to compose again, and new songs poured forth, some of which are the gems on\u00a0Sweetheartland<\/em>.<\/p>\n

After growing up in Mission Viejo, California, and study abroad in Paraguay during high school, Valparaiso University in Indiana beckoned Dunbar. She met and married her husband there and moved with him to a small town in Iowa, where she started singing folk songs with a new friend at public libraries, farmer\u2019s markets, and fairs. Before long, she was writing her own songs. A move to Nebraska provided the perfect quiet place to pen her tunes. Drawing from Simon & Garfunkel, Indigo Girls, Patty Griffin, Nanci Griffith, Joni Mitchell, John Prine, Lori McKenna, and other inspirations, she developed a distinctive perspective, musically and lyrically.<\/p>\n

Her debut solo EP,\u00a0Woman Like Me<\/em>, came out in 2013. In 2014, as a participant in the \u201cRealWomenRealSongs\u201d project, she wrote 52 songs, one per week. The following year, Dunbar recorded an EP,\u00a0The End Of Wanting<\/em>, and was a finalist at the Kerrville New Folk Festival. She took second place in\u00a0American Songwriter\u00a0<\/em>magazine\u2019s lyrics contest early in 2017 with her song \u201cWe Want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three Black Crows\u00a0<\/em>followed later in 2017, and when it was released the album inspired positive comparisons to Springsteen\u2019s\u00a0Nebraska<\/em>. The Americana blog\u00a0Mother Church Pew\u00a0<\/em>cited her references to \u201cdusty roads, endless fields and massive starry skies,\u201d to which she adds layers of meaning through her \u201cvisceral authenticity and raw honesty.\u201d American Roots host Craig Havighurst extolled her \u201cincredible language and truth-telling\u201d in the\u00a0Bluegrass Situation<\/em>.\u00a0Off-Center Views<\/em>\u00a0called it a \u201cmasterpiece.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past, she has shared stages with Darrell Scott, Richard Shindell, and Tom Paxton, among others. Until COVID guidelines permit touring in support of Sweetheartland, Dunbar plans to livestream, with a set already scheduled with TheBoot.com on their\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0on April 5, 2021 at 8 p.m. central.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.hopedunbarmusic.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Immediate Release February 1, 2021   Americana-folk singer-songwriter Hope Dunbar to release new album,\u00a0Sweetheartland, on April 2, 2021 Album is rife with hope, resignation, candor, craft, and vast New American Prairie-style resonance Nebraska-based Americana-folk singer-songwriter Hope Dunbar is set to release her new album,\u00a0Sweetheartland, on April 2, 2021. Recorded in Nashville before the pandemic … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Americana-folk singer-songwriter Hope Dunbar to release new album, “Sweetheartland,” on April 2, 2021 | Album is rife with hope, resignation, candor, craft, and vast New American Prairie-style resonance”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-2338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases","tag-press-releases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2339,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338\/revisions\/2339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skyemediaonline.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}