Grey DeLisle The Grey Album (CD)

(Humminbird Records) 20 tracks, digisleeve

Grey DeLisle turns out songs the way Stephen King turns out novels. The way Ryan Adams creates covers. The way Krispy Kreme delivers donuts. Sweet and satisfying, and staggering in sheer volume. “Prolific” doesn’t even begin to cut it. So you might be shocked to learn that DeLisle once endured a long songwriting dry spell while concentrating on her career as one of Hollywood’s top voice actors (The Simpsons, Scooby- Doo, SpongeBob) and mom of three children. It took the early months of the pandemic to bring the spark back, and Grey started writing feverishly.

The songs were coming so fast that she decided to start recording them with her longtime creative partner Murry Hammond of Old 97’s, with whom she has collaborated for over two decades on countless musical projects (and one human being, their son, the wunderkind visual artist Tex Hammond. Using Hammond’s full complement of vintage recording equipment, the pair took advantage of being in the same COVID “pod” (remember those?) to rack up
the songs, which would then be played for producer Marvin Etzioni via phone.

Etzioni has been DeLisle’s longtime creative partner since producing her first solo record, The Small Time in 1999, and introduced her to some of the musicians the pair still work with to this day. The artists on The Grey Album are like a Who’s Who of Americana and roots rock: strings by Tammy Rogers (Emmylou Harris, Neil Diamond, Patty Loveless), horns by David Ralicke (Lucinda Williams, Beck, Morrissey, John Cale), pedal steel by Greg Leisz (ummm…every major American artist who has ever used pedal steel?). And the best part is, they all separately contributed their parts in the coolest game of relay ever, after the original analog recordings were digitally mastered by renowned sound engineer Todd Burke (Ben Harper, Albert Hammond Jr., Belle and Sebastian). Grey would send the tracks off to Rogers, who laid down the heavenly strings and passed it on to Leisz for the pedal steel magic, then on to Ralicke for horns.

Along the way, DeLisle kept on writing more and more songs, and meeting more and more artists with whom she just had to collaborate. At a dinner party she happened to be seated next to the Runaways’ Cherie Currie, which had to be a sign because she had just written ‘40-Something Runaway’ that morning! Would Currie like to sing on it? She sure would! This is the kind of serendipity that seems to follow Grey DeLisle everywhere she goes. Stephen McCarthy (Long Ryders, Jayhawks) came on board for ‘Didn’t We Try’, and Etzioni lent his song ‘Convince Me’ originally written for Roy Orbison before his sudden death in 1988.

DeLisle took all of these threads over the course of five years to finally bring together the tapestry of The Grey Album. She is gearing up to record with John Carter Cash in the spring of 2025, but going on her first European tour since the mid-1990’s. She is especially excited to return to the Netherlands, where she has always had a strong following and will be a true full-circle moment for this veteran artist. The record is imbued with all of the Americana artistry of the many hands that brought it to life, woven in the inimitable style of Grey DeLisle.

A new tour, where she will be backed by the Blue Ribbon Boys, is set to follow from mid to late June.