The Memory of Trees:

Wyoming winters are long. Typically I spend a lot of time playing shows, trying out new material at the local open mic night, and playing outside in the snow. But this year was different.  First, the pandemic cost me shows. I had one in February. It’s the only show I’ve booked for 2021, though I’m hopeful for more in the summer and fall. Then there was a weird foot issue that had me not enjoying time on skis. And so I decided to figure out a home studio set-up and record a few songs. I set up in the spare bedroom of my house in Pinedale, and using a couple decent microphones and a handful of instruments, set out to make something while learning a bit more about the art of home recording and mixing.

These three songs are the result of this trial and error (okay, mostly error) process. These aren’t first takes or first mixes. I tossed the first couple versions where I could hear myself being more concerned about the quality of the recording than the quality of the performance. So instead, I recorded live takes, just vocal and guitar, with no click track, paying attention to the thing that matters most, the song. Then I painstakingly overdubbed mandolin, banjo, electric guitar, bass, and drums - a yoga block on a suitcase, a banjo head, tambourine. I added my own voice as harmony (something I’m usually loath to do). Finally, I asked Michelle Humber to come sing harmony vocals on a song. Her voice is the only sound on here that doesn’t come from me. 

Collaboration is one of my favorite parts of the musical experience. So playing producer, engineer, mixer, and musician was not always fun, but it was a worthwhile experience. I learned so much, and growth and learning is something I hope never ends. I like my generalist approach to life, and as such, you won’t hear an expert specialist on this recording. I’m not an expert musician, mixer, or songwriter, but I did all those things anyway. I wonder how many times I’ve been held back by comparing my generalist self to the specialists.

The songs are breakup songs and songs of loss. You know, the songwriting cliches. There’s Paper Angels, one of my oldest songs and the first song I remember writing that my friends meant when they said “good song!” There’s my most recent song, In Those Pines, where I inhabit a fictional family who are devastated by the California wildfires in 2020. And there’s Stationary Objects, a song I wrote as tribute to John Prine by trying to write like John Prine. I knew that was an impossible task.

But impossible tasks are only ever made possible if we put in the effort. And here I am, twenty plus years into this singer-songwriter game, putting in the effort. And as I say to kids I coach in rock climbing, the effort is what matters. And here, then, are the fruits of my winter effort, The Memory of Trees.

03 Stationary Objects

01 Paper Angels

Where We Belong

“Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—	
 Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!” - Rudyard Kipling (The Explorer, 1898)

​"His vocals are just gravelly and serious enough to feel like he’s telling a story you just need to hear. He’s the kind of songwriter that makes you feel glad to be a folk music fan – and the scary thing is he seems to be getting better and better." Greg Jones, Ear to the Ground Music

Presenting: Jason Tyler Burton - Lost Behind the Ranges
Singer/songwriter Jason Tyler Burton’s songs come from the fight between the two halves of his creative life: the musician who wants to be bouncing around the country from gig to gig, and the guy with a full-time job and a mortgage who loves to climb in the mountains as much as he loves to play music.

His new album, Lost Behind the Ranges, out April 21, 2017, straddles both those worlds. After his last album, Headwaters, Burton felt the romance of the life of a traveling musician beginning to lose its magic for him. He wrote the songs on Lost Behind the Ranges as he began to transition from wandering the West to finding a home in Wyoming, and the songs on the album reflect that journey.

Burton wrote most of the songs on the new album while working as a seasonal park ranger in Zion and Sequoia national parks, and recorded them in Pinedale, Wyoming, at the base of the Wind River Range, where he’s settled for now. 

“It’s a whole album of relationship songs,” he says. “Relationships with family, country, significant others, the road, the wilderness.”

The title for Lost Behind the Ranges comes from a line in a Rudyard Kipling poem, “The Explorer,” and which Burton says captures his belief that people need to explore and get lost in wild lands. Burton believes the album represents a new creative tangent for him musically, with drums and electric guitars on all eleven tracks (ten original compositions and one cover). 

Listeners will find contemplative passages, imagery of the struggle between the road and home, and plenty of spots to drum their fingers on the steering wheel while listening. Burton is joined by fellow Pinedale musicians Ryan Ptasnik, Terry Hill, and Michelle Humber, with additional playing provided by Aaron Davis, Kaitlyn Raitz, and Dave Tate.

The album is available digitally on Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon (and others) and in a limited-edition, 100-CD release with artwork by Nikki Frumkin. 100% of profits from those CD sales as well as $1.00 of every digital album sold will be donated to the Outdoor Alliance and other nonprofits that support public lands. 

Brendan Leonard
###

Find out more at:
www.jasontylerburton.com
Facebook and Instagram @JasonTylerBurton

Lost Behind the Ranges

On My Mind

Jason Tyler Burton Announces Americana Single, “High Road to Harlan”, Due Out June 24, 2019

Off Upcoming Album, Kentuckian, Due out September 6, 2019

"Had this album [Headwaters] been released in the early seventies, there is no doubt in my mind that he would right now be a legend of sorts. The kind Steve Goodman and John Prine became." —No Depression

FOR RELEASE JUNE 24

PINEDALE, WY (June 10, 2019) - “High Road To Harlan”, the new single from Americana musician and songwriter, Jason Tyler Burton, tells a surreal and chilling story from the perspective of an 85-year old Appalachian man raised in a Kentucky coal camp. The single steps into his mind as he reflects on everything he’s seen in his years, watching the destruction of the community, and the terrain wash away with history. “High Road to Harlan” is the first single off of the upcoming album, Kentuckian, and is out for release June 24. 

“High Road To Harlan” quivers with sentiment and the frustration of being raised in a place that has felt forgotten by the rest of the world. In Pineville Kentucky, hardships have buried themselves within the city time after time, yet, the people stay hopeful and proud. The suffering of Appalachian people in rural Kentucky may be told by Burton in his crooning voice but it’s on behalf of each and every member who still holds onto hope for their hometown. Struggle persists in the aftermath of major coal companies coming in and out and taking the wealth of the region with them. Poverty drives people to develop opioid addictions. Mountaintop removal increases erosion and sediment loads in the river. 

Despite being left with what feels like nothing, devotion and admiration beat strongly in the hearts of the Appalachian people, and they want things to get better. Burton sings, “Soon I’ll take the high road to Harlan / Climb up on Pine Mountain to see the old growth that remains / Reminding me there are things that I still love here / Reminding me there are things we still might save.” Rich vocal melodies amplify every emotion as trembling violin swells with aching passion. 


Kentuckian, the upcoming album from Jason Tyler Burton, narrows in on the complexities and nuances of Appalachian, rural life. People whose stories go untold or are  misunderstood have a place of significance on Kentuckian, including stories of Burton’s own life that he collected while spending his formative years there. The name of the album represents how Burton identifies as a Kentuckian. Despite not being a born native of the state, he found most of himself there, and it is his most personal album to date. The characters in many of the songs on the album are unashamedly Kentuckians, and their pride is imminent. In songs like “Easy For Me,” “High Road to Harlan,” and “Date Night at the Dairy Queen,” he chronicles their rural lives in a way that breaks down the stereotypes and cliches that are presented in books, on the news, or the endless stream of pop country songs coming out of Nashville. The name, Kentuckian, also represents Burton’s struggle with his roots in Kentucky. It will always be a place he calls home, and yet there are so many things about it and its peoples that frustrate him. The album digs into that juxtaposition but also has allowed Burton to claim who he is and not run from it - like a true Kentuckian.

High Road To Harlan

Story teller and songwriter, influenced by sandal tan lines, dirty fingernails, and the way a river meanders through a meadow in the mountains. Outdoor educator. Kentuckian turned rocky mountain wanderer.

Jason Tyler Burton

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