Levi Parham – “These American Blues” (audio) (premiere)

Describing his new single, “These American Blues”, Oklahoma singer/songwriter Levi Parham admits the song is a play on words: “It came about one day while talking with my dad. He had just gotten a smart phone and had proclaimed to me that ‘there weren’t nothin’ left to find out’. I laughed so hard at that, but there was truth to it. Half the fun of dreaming is searching the whole thing out, figuring out what your dream is and how you get there. I know nothing about cars, but from one YouTube video I could take the whole engine apart and put it back together. I didn’t earn that knowledge. I didn’t spend my high school nights in the garage trying to figure that stuff out. There’s something lost there, and that’s where ‘These American Blues’ came from.”

Marking his debut with 2013’s DIY An Okie Opera, Parham took to Nashville to record his 2014 EP, Avalon Drive. With These American Blues — his first studio album — in the can, Parham’s freewheeling “These American Blues” and its false promises could stand as a rootsy election year anthem.

These American Blues will be out on June 24 via Music Road Records.