Bill Scorzari Releases 2nd Single
“The Broken Heart Side of the Road”
From Upcoming Album: The Crosswinds of Kansas
“With its melancholy tone, Scorzari lends his gritty vocals to a work of dark Americana roots music. Mandolin, banjo, and fiddle add to the rustic imagery of the lyrics, while a lonesome Dobro and soulful background vocals give the tune a sense of spirituality and depth. The result is a song that carries a stirring energy and a haunting tale.”—Glide Magazine – Song Premiere
The Crosswinds of Kansas is Independently Released Aug 19
“Thirteen tracks at well over an hour provides plenty of evidence that Scorzari’s message is powerful and profound. The raspy, emotive voice and the chanting ruminations throughout are a joy… The Crosswinds of Kansas therefore has many vivid and sometimes dark stories to tell… [It] is an indisputable triumph and presented in a lavish, detailed CD package, which was an utter joy to review.” —Rob Dickens’ Listening Through The Lens
HUNTINGTON, NY — Today, Bill Scorzari is excited to release “The Broken Heart Side of the Road” as the 2nd single (and 2nd music video) from his upcoming album, The Crosswinds of Kansas (independently released Aug 19). In “The Broken Heart Side of the Road,” Scorzari recounts a hard tale of the destruction of a relationship, set to traditional roots music.
He tells Glide Magazine, “I started writing ‘The Broken Heart Side of the Road’ back in 2015 and then it kind of fell off my radar for a while. When I returned to New York after the end of the Now I’m Free tour in 2019, I found that it fit really well with the other songs I was writing at the time, and so I made a few changes to the lyrics and reworked the song structure until it felt right. The lyrics sprouted right out of the chord progression and, at least on some level, are grounded in time I spent in my childhood, learning from my dad how to plant and care for growing things. I especially loved being able to work a lyric into the first chorus, about the risks of planting corn too early in the season. ‘And then a cold rain in the morning corkscrewed my cold-planted corn, and then half my crop took twice the time to grow.’”
Bill recorded the acoustic guitar and vocal tracks for “The Broken Heart Side of the Road” (and much of the 13-track album) in his studio—First Thunder— in New York in late 2020. In mid 2021, after many people had gotten vaccinated and it appeared to be relatively safe to travel again, Bill drove to Skinny Elephant Recording in Nashville, TN (where he previously recorded Now I’m Free 2019) and met with album Co-Producer Neilson Hubbard (drums, percussion), Michael Rinne (upright bass), Fats Kaplin (fiddle), Matt Menefee (banjo), Brent Burke (Dobro), Will Kimbrough (mandolin), and Engineer Dylan Alldredge to record their parts live there together for the song. Later, in September of 2021, Bill returned to Nashville to work with Dylan on the final mixes and they recorded Marie Lewey and Cindy Richardson Walker, a/k/a The Shoals Sisters, singing the backing vocals to “The Broken Heart Side of the Road.” Lewy and Walker recorded backing vocals for a few of the other tracks. For some of the other songs, Rinne also plays electric bass, in addition to his upright, and Kaplin adds his richly melodic and rhythmic sensibilities on pedal steel guitar, and viola, in addition to his fiddle.
Anna Berman
Other musicians who joined in for the recording of The Crosswinds of Kansas during the Nashville sessions include Danny Mitchell on Hammond B3 organ and piano with a masterfully cinematic approach; Juan Solorzano on electric, slide, and baritone guitars with flawless technique and heart wrenching phrasing; Grand Ole Opry staff fiddle player Eamon McLoughlin; accomplished cellist Chelsea McGough; acclaimed banjo player Kyle Tuttle; and gifted vocalist Mia Rose Lynne on harmony vocals.
Much of The Crosswinds of Kansas was inspired by his Now I’m Free Tour in 2019—which had become a journey of self discovery, with Bill ultimately arriving at a new awareness and desire to adapt and continue to create. He made his way from the east coast, toward, and around the west coast and back, traveling under two full moons, visiting waterfalls, hiking, climbing, pondering and processing his life experiences of loss, gain and change, and at times composed haiku as a way to pass the time. The tour came to a sudden early end as Bill learned of the decline in the health of his then 94 year old mother.
The album begins with “I-70 East,” an electric-guitar-driven song that came to him while driving home from the Now I’m Free Tour. Scorzari sings, “Then, came the crosswinds of Kansas unleashed, and it pushed me hard, north and south, all down I-70 east… As I tore home to my mother, before her health, it would fail, at 94, I felt another love leaving me lost, like a nail in a cross.”
Bill says, “When I wrote ‘I-70 East,’ I immediately knew that it was going to be the first track on this new album, even before I wrote the others, and when you cue up this record, it’ll be the first song that you hear when the music begins.” It was also the first single released from the album. Americana Highways premiered the music video for the song and says, “He’s captured such pain. And the beauty of a Rose.”
The 13 original tracks on The Crosswinds of Kansas have many stories to tell including the enlightened “All Behind Me Now,” the life-affirming “1, 2, 3, Jump,” the fast-moving acoustic jam of “A Ghost, My Hat and My Coat,” and the rhythmic, semi-autobiographical, sound-collage “The Measure of a Man.”
Bill says, “I found that a lot of the songs on this record wound up having an upbeat feel, even when the lyrical content wasn’t necessarily upbeat, or at least not primarily or entirely so. It’s a very satisfying thing when that happens, like positivity shining through and prevailing over our struggles with adversity.”
In the rootsy “The Broken Heart Side of the Road” Scorzari recounts the destruction of a relationship, while the upbeat “Multnomah Falls” weaves a rainy day’s hike into a story of the trials of change and transcendence, and the orchestral “Oceans In Your Eyes” recounts perilous navigation through enchanted waters. The wistful melody and promising lyrics of “Patience and Time” bring a haunting nostalgia which reemerges as the central theme of the hypnotic, plaintive “Try, Try Again,” and prescience triumphs in
uncertain circumstance in the folksy “Not Should’ve Known.”
“Inside My Heart” features a mix of contemporary and Indigenous instruments and opens with the bell chime of a Tibetan singing bowl, a cluster of claw-hammer banjo notes, and a Native American flute flourish, while “Tryin’,Tryin’,Tryin’,Tryin’,” the final track on the album, has an intriguing story behind it which resulted in Bill learning Navajo from the flutemaker for the song, a Navajo man named Ty Allison and his friends.
Bill Scorzari is a New York native, with a richly raspy voice and a stellar ear for lyrics and composition. At a later age, he transformed his life as a New York Trial Attorney, to a new life as an accomplished, full-time musician. His discography includes four full-length albums: Just the Same (2014), Through These Waves (2017), and Now I’m Free (2019)—-all independently released to critical acclaim. Acoustic Guitar’s Pat Moran wrote, “New York-based singer-songwriter Bill Scorzari transcends titles like songwriter or poet. He catapults past categories into a dark, ruminative, and ultimately life-affirming realm where family folklore, memories, pain, prayer, and incantation meet.” Scorzari dives deeper into these themes with his 4th studio album, The Crosswinds of Kansas, which will be out on August 19.
For more information, updates and tour dates, visit www.BillScorzari.com.
Pre-order The Crosswinds of Kansas at https://billscorzari.hearnow.com/the-crosswinds-of-kansas.
Bill Scorzari — The Crosswinds of Kansas
Track Listing & Credits:
1.) I-70 East (3:16)
2.) Inside My Heart (5:09)
3.) All Behind Me Now (6:01)
4.) Multnomah Falls (4:21)
5.) Oceans In Your Eyes (4:14)
6.) Not Should’ve Known (5:23)
7.) The Broken Heart Side of the Road (4:38)
8.) A Ghost, My Hat and My Coat (4:23)
9.) Patience and Time (6:15)
10.) 1, 2, 3, Jump (6:29)
11.) Try, Try Again (5:17)
12.) The Measure of a Man (4:02)
13.) Tryin’, Tryin’,Tryin’,Tryin’ (11:56)
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