{"id":1948731,"date":"2025-08-08T06:35:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T06:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1948731"},"modified":"2025-08-08T06:35:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T06:35:04","slug":"joshua-hedley-announces-new-western-swing-album-all-hat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/joshua-hedley-announces-new-western-swing-album-all-hat\/","title":{"rendered":"Joshua Hedley Announces New Western Swing Album \u201cAll Hat\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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photo: Joshua Black Wilkins\u00a0<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Mr. Jukebox. The Mayor of Lower Broadway. The Singin\u2019 Professor of Country & Western. Whatever you want to call him, Joshua Hedley has been a radical preservationist of actual country music for years, holding court in a continuing residency at Robert\u2019s Western World on Lower Broadway in Nashville, helping to beat back the rising tide of bad music. <\/p>

Everything that Joshua Hedley does is country. For him, it\u2019s not a question of genres, but eras. In 2018, he awoke the Countrypolitan era with Mr. Jukebox<\/em>. In 2022, he was ahead of the game by evoking \u201990s country with Neon Blue<\/a><\/em>, including numerous songs co-written by some kid named Zach Top. Hedley could\u2019ve returned to that well again since \u201990s country is so hot, but he\u2019s always stayed one step ahead of the game in rekindling the past. So on his new album All Hat<\/em> out October 24th on New West Records, Hedley\u2019s going Western Swing. <\/p>

Hedley\u2019s no stranger to the subgenre. In fact, his first ever record was a tribute to Western Swing the singer and fiddle player recorded when he was only 15 years old. At that point, he\u2019d already been playing fiddle for seven years. \u201cI found a copy of it recently, and it\u2019s not as bad as I expected. I\u2019d only been singing in public for about two weeks, but I might\u2019ve been a better fiddle player then than I am now,\u201d<\/em> Hedley says. \u201cI didn\u2019t grow up playing in garage bands. I grew up at the goddamned VFW hall. I grew up playing with guys in their fifties and sixties. When I first heard Asleep at the Wheel and their Bob Wills tribute, it blew my mind that there was a band out there still playing this kind of music.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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That\u2019s why when Hedley decided to make a new Western Swing album, he went directly to the source for help. All Hat<\/em> was produced by Ray Benson of Asleep At The Wheel, with numerous members of the band participating in the recordings as well, including well-respected fiddler Jason Roberts. \u201cObviously [Ray] was in the producer role and he did produce the shit out of this record, but a lot of it was him just letting us cut loose and see what happens,\u201d<\/em> Hedley explains. \u201cWe\u2019d work out a song and he\u2019d step in with some suggestions. It was amazing to see how it\u2019s done not only in real time, but from one of the greats. I don\u2019t think he knows just how much he was teaching me.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

Though when some think of Western Swing, they might thing of a stuffy, outmoded, fuddy duddy version of country, that\u2019s not the approach Hedley takes to it. \u201cAt its core Western Swing is just dance music,\u201d<\/em> he says. \u201cBob Wills didn\u2019t play theatres; he played dance halls. The music is for dancing, and that\u2019s what I wanted to come through on these songs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>

Who knows, perhaps Hedley will be the spearhead for the revitalization of Western Swing as a popular art form, similar to what he did for \u201990s country. Why is bluegrass such a massive music category, and Western Swing so under-represented? Hedley will do his part in presenting the beauty of the art form come October 24th. New song \u201cFresh Hot Biscuits\u201d is out now. <\/p>

All Hat<\/em> is now available for pre-save\/pre-order<\/a><\/strong>. TRACK LIST: <\/strong><\/p>

1. All Hat (No Cattle)2. Boogie Woogie Tennessee\u00a03. Fresh Hot Biscuits4. Stuck in Texas (feat. Ray Benson)5. Hedliner Polka6. Come Take A Ride With Me7. Clueless8. Mean Mama Blues9. Crawlin\u2019 Home To You10. The Waltz I Promised To You11. Over The Line<\/p>\n\n\n\n