Working with Mike Albanese at Espresso Machine Recording in Athens, Caleb Keith & the Calaveras recorded Between Late and Lonesome live, laying down all of the music in a single day. They brought in veteran player Kenny Head, formerly of the Georgia Satellites, to add some flourish with keys to several of the tracks. The resulting album is a tight, 8-song collection that reflects the group’s blend of honkytonk, rock, and soul, with songs about loving and leaving, late nights and lonely highways, heartaches, hard times, and hope.

Between Late and Lonesome

Liza Jane

Wish You Well

Waiting on the Water

Middle America

What Have You Done?

Where Do You Go?

Marie

“Somewhere out in Middle America /Halfway between late and lonesome…” So sings singer-songwriter Caleb Keith on the song “Middle America,” propelled by the deep honky-tonk twang of his band, the Calaveras. It’s is the lyric from which the Athens, GA outfit’s debut offering, Between Late and Lonesome, extracts its title, and fittingly so. Caleb’s music is a collection of songs infused with themes of wanderlust and lost love, informed by Caleb’s upbringing and subsequent departure from a place that falls squarely within the region defined in the title: Champaign, Illinois. His formative years were shaped by his parents’ record collection of old and new country, and 60s and 70s rock and soul. Caleb later discovered alt-country luminaries such as Whiskeytown, Uncle Tupelo, Old 97s, Two Dollar Pistols, the Jayhawks, and others whose music reflected the spirit of the so-called flyover country in which he was raised. From these influences, Caleb found a deep-seated appreciation for the power of a simple, heartfelt song delivered with some grit and twang, as well as the spark of inspiration to create something of his own, resulting in a sound that is at once both old and new, faded and familiar.