JOHN CALVIN ABNEY, ‘GET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER’ [EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE]
Oklahoma-based singer-songwriter John Calvin Abney is premiering his new song "Get Your House in Order" exclusively for readers of The Boot. Press play below to listen.
Lush harmonies are layered over a dreamy groove on "Get Your House in Order," a song that's all about setting yourself straight. The tune appears on Abney's forthcoming album Coyote, which features instrumental performances from some of Americana's best musicians, including former Drive By Truckers bassist Shonna Tucker, who provides the track's pulsing backbone.
“In the last year, I was confronted with a series of events that took the breath out of me ... So much was happening. I wanted to be a million places at once, but I was barely able to be present where I was. I knew I had to figure out how to cope, how to adapt and keep moving forward," Abney explains of the inspiration for the 10 songs on Coyote. "I was writing a lot in the back of the van and the hotels I was staying in ... I wasn’t rushing myself. I was just slowly working through everything. It helped keep me going.”
Both a singer-songwriter and sideman for hire, Abney often performs alongside John Moreland. In fact, it was Moreland who gave Abney the nickname that inspired the title of his forthcoming record.
“Moreland introduced me as ‘Coyote Trigger’ onstage a couple times," Abney shares. "I thought it was hilarious — the idea of me as this wild pup running around with big hair and tight jeans and cowboy boots. But later, when I was thinking about what to call this new record, it hit me like a spark. To figure out how to deal with all these things I’d never dealt with, I had to think on my feet, to be scrappy and cunning — I was like a coyote out on the road, confused, wounded and fighting to figure out a way.”