A midnight cigarette with JD McPherson...

A new duet, brought to you by a bit of old-fashioned Nashville magic!

They say nothing good happens after midnight, but they’re wrong. I can prove it…

I was sitting on my friend Nicole Atkins’ front porch in Nashville, eating pizza while she smoked a cigarette and talked music biz shorthand at the speed of a tiny tornado. We were chatting about what we each had cooking creatively and she asked me who my dream collaborators would be, I said I would love to work with JD McPherson. She said, “No way, he’s one of my best friends! He lives in Oklahoma, but he’s actually in town this week, producing Jessica Simpson at RCA studios down the road, let me text him!” It was almost midnight. He responded saying he was just wrapping up and was tired and heading back to his hotel to get some sleep. She then text him a video clip of me performing at the Ryman, winked at me and said, “Just wait…” Her phone pinged with a message, “Bring cigarettes”.

There’s nothing I love more than old Nashville lore and this felt like one of those moments as we jumped into Nicole’s car at midnight. Suddenly, we were Charlie Dick (husband of Patsy Cline) and Willie Nelson sitting at Tootsies Orchid Lounge, drinking into the wee hours (Willie was building a reputation in town as a great songwriter, but was still a decade away from stardom himself). Willie had just written a new song and played the demo for Charlie on the jukebox. Charlie got up from his stool and said he wanted it for Patsy. They drove to his house and woke her at 1 am to play it for her. The song was “Crazy”. God, I love that stuff.

We met up with JD in the lobby and went outside to the patio so he could smoke. It began drizzling with rain, but, we barely noticed as we chatted excitedly about our love of Nancy & Lee and country noir. So, months later, when I wrote a duet for the beloved NZ murder mystery TV series, “The Brokenwood Mysteries”, I immediately thought of him and asked if he would be the Hazlewood to my Sinatra and he kindly said yes. That duet “You’re Gonna Fall” is out today- evidence that good things do happen after midnight after all…

🎶 LISTEN: YOU'RE GONNA FALL feat. JD McPherson 🎶

I’m currently on tour with Willie Nelson, heading to the Opry to perform this weekend. I’ll be doing livestreams from backstage exclusively for my paid subscribers (it’s only $5 a month!) so, if you’d like to come along for a bit more of this wild ride, sign up today and I’ll see you backstage! Thank you for your support ❤️