Darryl Holter's sophomore album, West Bank Gone, will be released on September 21st by 213 Music. The album features special guest musicians Benmont Tench (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) on keyboards, pedal and lap steel guitar master Greg Leisz and renowned percussionist Nate Wood. West Bank Gone was produced by Grammy nominee Ben Wendel, recorded at Conway Studios.
Darryl Holter will celebrate the release of West Bank Gone with a series of September dates in both Los Angeles (including a show at Hotel Café) and Minneapolis/St. Paul. (dates not provided in the announcement)
Combining the deft touch of both a lyricist and a musical historian, Darryl Holter recreates the fabled "West Bank" folk and roots music scene in Minneapolis of the 1960s, which spawned a young Bob Dylan and where Bonnie Raitt recorded her first album. Drawing from his own North Country roots experiences, Holter paints a vivid tableau of what it was like back then, with songs such as "The Mixers," a sad but engaging ballad set in a popular West Bank bar; "5 am," a spirited song about a chance encounter in a dreary all-night coffee shop; or the title track, which chronicles some of the West Bank personalities who are no longer with us.
In addition to the original tunes, West Bank Gone also includes four covers of songs from Jay Farrar ("Back Into Your World"), "Spider" John Koerner and Willie Murphy ("Friends and Lovers"), Gram Parsons ("One Hundred Years from Now"), and the Bard of Hibbing, himself, Bob Dylan ("Girl from the North Country").
The extensive CD booklet liner notes include personal remembrances from Darryl Holter about his coming of age in the area, how each of the songs came about and insights into the characters that populated this world. It also includes an introduction from celebrated author Joe Nick Patoski, who also lived there at the time and says of the album, "These songs and the vivid imagery within them bring it all back home for just a little bit."
