ALBUM RELEASE SHOW ON FEBRUARY 27 AT ROCKWOOD MUSIC HALL IN NYC
NEW ALBUM THE ORPHAN KING DUE FEBRUARY 23
Ed Romanoff’s new video for “Without You” premieres at The Bluegrass Situation. Both video and song feature Kenneth Pattengale of Milk Carton Kids. Romanoff’s inspiration for the song comes from a case of identify theft he experienced after an ex-girlfriend allegedly sold his financial information to a gang. See the post HERE and watch/share the video HERE. His upcoming album, The Orphan King, is slated for release February 23 via PineRock Records. The title of the follow-up to his 2012 self-titled debut stems in part from Romanoff’s recent discovery from a DNA test that his father’s identity was mistaken.
In support of the new record, Romanoff will perform an album release show atRockwood Music Hall in New York on February 27 alongside Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney) on drums, Sara Lee (B52s) on bass, Ann Klein (Ani DiFranco) on guitar and mandolin and Jay Collins (Greg Allman Band) on horns.
His previous video. for the track “Less Broken Now” (featuring Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams), premiered at PopMatters who called it “a gorgeous song…[with] truly heavenly harmonies that lift the song to greatness.” Earlier, M Music & Musicians Magazine debuted the audio for the song along with an in-depth interview, which can be read here.
A lifetime of occupational rambling across the country—including stacking toilet bowls in North Carolina and branding cattle in Wyoming—and a relatively late start to musicianship has given Romanoff a unique perspective as a songwriter. An embrace of outsiders is integral to his material with songs about abandoned Irish boxers, outlaws and even the Elephant Man. The thirteen tracks on the new LP collectively depict a kind of gothic car chase across some mythic American plain.
Based in Woodstock, NY, Romanoff worked alongside producer Simone Felice (Lumineers) to record The Orphan King at Felice’s barn studio just miles down the road in Palenville, NY. The pair corralled an impressive roster of collaborators to appear on the album including Romanoff’s longtime friend and touring mate Rachael Yamagata,Kenneth Pattengale of the Milk Carton Kids, guitarist Cindy Cashdollar (Dylan’s Time Out of Mind), The E Street Band’s Cindy Mizelle and multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell, along with Campbell’s wife and duo partner, Teresa Williams.
Romanoff is a singular chronicler of American experience having had an unconventional journey before beginning his music career in earnest. He founded his own New York-based production group but then committed himself to songwriting in his forties with mentorship in Nashville from the likes of Darrell Scott, Beth Nielson Chapman andMary Gauthier, who invited him to support her on tour. His 2012 self-titled debut, produced by Crit Harmon (Lori McKenna, Martin Sexton), won the Nashville Songwriters Song of the Year and later that year he joined Steve Earle and James McMurtry as a winner of the Kerrville New Folk Competition.
THE ORPHAN KING TRACK LIST
1. Miss Worby’s Ghost
2. Elephant Man
3. A Golden Crown
4. The Orphan King
5. Without You
6. Leavin’ With Someone Else
7. Less Broken Now
8. The Ballad of Willie Sutton
9. I’ll Remember You
10. The Night is a Woman
11. Blue Boulevard (Na Na Na)
12. Lost and Gone
13. Coronation Blues