The eleven vignettes that comprise Man in the Maroon were recorded during a global pandemic that brought Korby's touring schedule to a halt in 2020. He'd spent his previous years on the road, playing as many as 200 shows annually. Stuck at home with an unprecedented amount of time on his hands, he resolved to make a career-defining album that stretched his limits as a writer and instrumentalist. "I remember thinking, 'Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow?" says Korby, who co-produced the album with Skylar Wilson. "I wanted to create an album as though it were the last thing I'd ever make. A for-the-joy-of-it project."

Two years earlier, he'd spent the summer in Montana after the sudden, unexpected loss of his little sister. It was a period of mourning and slow recovery. “I unplugged," he admits. "Really for the first time in my adult life. Just stopped answering emails. Stopped trying. I had been white-knuckling my way through this crazy career for so long I didn’t know how to not do it. Losing Kenna was a major perspective changer." Isolated in Montana, Lenker rode horses, learned to play the clawhammer banjo, and wrote new songs. Man in the Maroon reflects that work, with tracks like the atmospheric "Crow Country" — written in tribute to his late sibling and featuring contributions from the Grammy-winning Native American songwriter Bill Miller— showcasing his newfound skills on the clawhammer banjo. Other tracks make room for the wider range of Korby's instrumental skills, from piano ballads like "Tri-State Lottery" and "What's Wrong With Us" to the fingerpicked folk-pop song "Soft As Cactus." Elsewhere, "All In My Head" finds Lenker singing about mental health over heartland rock hooks, the instrumental "Billie Louise" nods to his bluegrass roots, and "Moon River" — a reimagined cover of the Great American Songbook standard — mixes classic melodies with a new, explorative arrangement. "I love American roots music," he explains. "There’s something familiar in it. Like, it reminds you of what you already know. But I also have this restless part of me that wants to avoid doing the same thing over and over again. 'Invention' is my favorite word. I’ve always wanted to do something nobody's ever done. The combination of those two spirits — the comfort of the familiar and the restlessness of invention — is really embodied in that arrangement of 'Moon River.'"

The same duality runs throughout Man in the Maroon as a whole. This is Korby Lenker's eighth studio album, and like the records before it, it mixes the fresh with the familiar, the modern with the classic, the explorative with the traditional. Created during a period of isolation — or, to repurpose the album's title, a time of marooning — it offers a refreshing break from the banal. 

"The record is an extension of my live show," Korby says, "and whenever I play live, my job is to make people forget where they are. I want them to be absolutely present, and I want to give them something that resonates after the show is over, for as long as possible. It's really hard to grab attention, to draw skittish eyes your way, but once you have it, you should be trying to give people something that merits that attention. I think about that a lot… It's not enough to distract. I want to change the world.”

Mose And Ella

Now I Once Thought That I Was Strong

Crow Country

All In My Head

Appeared on a few different episodes of "The Fosters" on ABC Family.

Forbidden Fruit

03 Lovers Are Fools

02 If I Prove False To You

01 Hurts Me So

The theme song for Friday Lunch, a weekly show that airs on YouTube every Friday at 1pm. Featuring the best talent of East Nashville and beyond. 

Check it out at https://bit.ly/FridayLunchPlaylist

Friday Lunch, Friday Lunch
You made it through the week and you didn't get punched 
World's gone crazy but I gotta hunch
That we'll all feel better after Friday Lunch

Friday Lunch Theme Song

Will appear on "Songs for Shelter Me", a soundtrack featuring songs appearing in or inspired by the PBS pet adoption series "Shelter Me"

Pendulum

recorded a few days ago in a cabin north of sun valley idaho

Love is oh so Patient

Recorded live in a secret location in the woods outside of Nashville. For Shay.  Read about the inspiration for this song at https://thousandsprings.org/2016/05/09/wherever-you-are/

I'm probably up too late
Trying to write down something that's too big for me to say
The funny thing about you gone
Is that you're not
Just been a few days since
But it don't feel like I'm ever gonna get used to this
Cause you're on my mind
All the time

I don't want you
to think that
nobody wanted you around

I can only hope that you can hear me
Somewhere out there in the stars
I know how this world can be
But I loved you
And I still do
Wherever you are

Its crazy how it all began
Just a twinkle in my eye 
You know I never saw it coming
Cause I'm just another black hat
And you're a magic rabbit
And everything else is just a facsimile 
And nothing I can say or sing
Is ever gonna bring you back to me
And maybe it's all in vain
But I won't accept that

So if I can 
write you a little song
Maybe I can keep you
around a little longer
well you know I'd do anything

I can only hope that you can hear me
Somewhere out there in the stars
I know how this world can be
But I loved you
And I still do
Wherever you are
Wherever you are
Wherever you are
Wherever you are

Wherever You Are

written with Stoll Vaughn. Featured on forthcoming album "Thousand Springs", Korby's 7th.

Nothing Really Matters

Cover of the Neil Young song, updated for 2012.

10 Heart of Gold

My Little Life
(Korby Lenker / Megan McCormick)

Ain't got a steady job
Ain't got a smoking girlfriend
Ain't got a fancy phone
Get my music from the FM
Ain't got a private jet
Ain't got a red corvette
Ain't got a summer home
Just me in my apartment all alone
But that's just fine

My little life
My little life
My little life is mine, mine, mine

Don't mind the cherry coke
Don't mind the country music
Don't mind the vein broke
Money's just so I can use it
I like the sleeping in
I like the join to the movies
I got a few good friends
We like hangin out and doin
Nothing much at all
Doo doo doo doo doo

My little life
My little life 
My little life is mine mine mine mine

Somedays I go to the gym
Somedays I go to the bar
Most days I wake up all alone
But that's just fine
That's just fine

My little life
My little life 
My little life is mine mine mine mine
My little life
My little life 
My little life is mine mine mine mine
Mine

09 My Little Life

Got to Be More

8th studio album Man in the Maroon just dropped May 21!
professional song traveler 🎶
author of Medium Hero ✍︎\
creator of Morse Code 📺

Korby Lenker

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