An Oklahoma City-based husband-and-wife duo is releasing their sophomore album this week after spending two years crafting the “gritty blues-rock riffs.”
Shane Henry and Maggie McClure, of the duo The Imaginaries, will release “Fever,” an album about breakthrough and being on the other side of struggle, according to McClure. The 12-song album is full of vocal harmonies, pop-rock tunes, blues-rock riffs and heartfelt singer-songwriter ballads. It features guitar solos from Vince Gill, Joe Bonamassa, and Ariel Posen.
“We have a few songs about the challenges that we encounter as artists, but there’s breakthrough to the other side and we’re seeing glimpses of that right now, which is really exciting,” McClure said. “It’s about the journey and this album is about calling forth what you want in life and making it happen and I think this album is a testament to that.”
McClure and Henry are born and raised Oklahomans, growing up in Verden and Norman respectively. The pair met when McClure opened for Shane, falling in love and getting married in 2011 before moving to Los Angeles to work on their solo music careers. The Imaginaries’ first collaboration was the Christmas album, “Hometown Christmas,” and has since amassed 75-plus sync-licensing placements in film, television and advertisements.
The sophomore album was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, recording a total of 15 songs and narrowing it down to 12 tracks for the final release. McClure said this album will be pressed on vinyl, a first for the duo, and will feature bonus tracks.
“ We came home from Muscle Shoals with all of these sessions and all these files a little bit overwhelmed, to be honest,” McClure said.”We’re like, okay, how are we going to finish this and keep the vibe of the band all playing in the room together, but also kind of clean it up and tighten it up and add anything that needs to be added.”
McClure said the duo worked with Stephen Leiweke out of Nashville to finish the recording and get the album to the finish line. It was during this part of recording the album that the duo began adding features to some of the tracks.
“It is just crazy because we had no intention of having featured people on this album. It just kinda happened. We’ve actually never had features before on any of our other projects,” McClure said.
The Vince Gill feature came in a roundabout way, starting with the soundtrack of a film called “The Cowgirl Song.” McClure and Henry both had starring roles in the film, filmed in Chickasha, and wrote several of the songs performed on screen. Henry said they enlisted several Oklahoma musicians to play on the soundtrack and reached out to Gill to see if he was available.
Though he was not able to work on the soundtrack, Henry said he and McClure formed a friendship with Gill and met up with him several times in Nashville.
“ We had this song called “Whole Lotta Livin’” that we thought he would just be perfect for because it was kind of a little different, more major-sounding type song and it was a little bit more… it had a tinge more of country to it. So we asked him if he’d play guitar on it and he did.”
Henry said the collaboration with Bonamassa was a happy accident. He met Bonamassa years ago when they both were on the B.B. King festival circuit and shared a passion for old guitars and vintage cars and trucks. In fact, Henry said he sold Bonamassa an old truck in 2018 and when the duo was in Nashville, Bonamassa reached out to show Henry the work he had done on that truck.
“ He came by the studio and we happened to be working on the song “Crossroads” and it was just like a perfect moment for him to step in the room and be like, ‘Hey man, would you play some slide on this,’” Henry said.
Henry reached out to Posen to see if he would be open to playing on The Imaginaries’ upcoming album as they had met years ago in California.
“I think one of the coolest things about the era that we live in now, the age of technology, is that it’s really easy to collaborate with people that you like, that you want to collaborate with,” Henry said.
Henry and McClure produced the album themselves and are independent artists, which McClure said is the reason it took two years to complete and release the album.
“ We wanted to do it right and we wanted to give the music the best shot that we could, being independent and getting it out there and getting it heard and seen,” McClure said.
One song on the album Henry is proud of, called “Buzzards Roost”, was written with their friend Jeff Silbar, a Grammy award-winning songwriter. Henry said it’s the first song by The Imaginaries that is not about their own experiences but tells a story instead. Henry said this song is about western outlaw Jesse James and Buzzard’s Roost, an old outlaw hideout near Cement.
Henry said the legend is that the James Gang hid a bunch of gold in the area while on the run, adding that Henry’s grandfather took him to Buzzard’s Roost as a child to explore and mess around with a metal detector.
A single from the album, “Constant,” was released last month and is a ballad McClure wrote as a love letter to Shane during one of his hardest days. A release about the album said the song is shaped by place, experience, and the strength of starting over.
The Imaginaries’ second album, “Fever,” releases Aug. 22 and the duo will soon head out on a 30-date tour across the country. To purchase the upcoming album or find an upcoming show, visit imaginariesband.com.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
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