Coming July 17: Kevin Kerby's "Apostle's Tongues"

You can't tell the history of Little Rock's prolific music scene or list the city's greatest songwriters without making a lot of space in those documents for Kevin Kerby. He played guitar in Ho Hum back when the group was signed to Universal, then struck out on his own and made four amazing albums leading the alternative country band par excellence Mulehead. The homespun recording The Secret Lives of All-Night Radios was Kerby's first solo release in 2005. He followed it up in 2009 with the more raucous Beautiful and Bright, recorded with his band Battery. Like a character in a Faulkner novel, Kerby writes country songs about rock 'n' roll hedonism, sings gospel songs in a bar at 2 a.m., and praises the bonds that tie him to a place he longs to escape but that also defines who he is.

It was the best news I got all week, then, when Max Recordings put out the news that Kerby's new album Apostle's Tongues is set to release on  July 17, and posted a nostalgia tinged video for the album's first single "It's Not Needing What You Want, It's Wanting What You Need," which is embedded at the top of this post. Apostle's Tongues is available as a limited edition (100 copies) CD and booklet, a regular edition CD, and on iTunes.