Adam Sanders has been writing some of the biggest country radio songs you know for a while. He co-wrote “Ain’t Worth the Whiskey” for Cole Swindell, the massive 2014 breakout hit for the latter. He also co-wrote a number one for Dustin Lynch, “Hell of a Night.” He’s spent the better part of a decade working Music Row, writing songs for Luke Bryan, Dierks Bentley and Tyler Farr, among others. Now, at 32, he has a feeling he’s ready to do it on his own. What if he’s right?
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I had never eaten at Irondale Cafe, and that’s a regular stop for Adam and Blake Williamson, so we met for lunch a few weeks ago. It’s true what they say about the fried green tomatoes.
As we were walking in, Blake says to me, “So how did you end up with the name Blake?”
“It was the lead character on the 80s primetime soap opera Dynasty,” I said.
“Yeah. Blake Carrington. Me too,” he replied. “I imagine there’s a bunch of us that were born there in that little window of time.”
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Gabe Lee is 30 now, and for the most part, he’s spent all of that time in the town he was born: Nashville. His parents still live about a half hour away, and they’re “part of what keeps him there and part of what keeps him in line.”
“It’s been a huge blessing to have them here,” he says. “Especially last year, when everything was in flux. I couldn’t see them as much as I would have normally, but they were still within reach, which is comforting.”
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For the first time in 11 years, Birmingham natives Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink have come together to release a new record as Azure Ray. Well, they didn’t quite “come together,” but Remedy will nonetheless be the band’s first release as one in more than a decade.
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Sarah Lee Langford is slowly getting back in front of audiences. Her debut album, Two Hearted Rounder, was released just five months before the pandemic abruptly shut things down. She just wrapped an appearance at Six Mile Fest just south of Montevallo, and she’ll open the Homewood Theatre Music Series on Saturday with her pedal steel player Ford Boswell.
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Harper Grae graduated from a K-12 school in Reeltown, Alabama. Unincorporated Tallapoosa County–not close to much of anything. It’s “sorta” near Lake Martin and Dadeville and Tallassee and Waverly, but really, if you didn’t grow up there or spend a lot of time driving to Auburn, do any of those even manage to ring a bell?
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Blake Ells 