ALBUM PREMIERE: Oklahoma’s Jared Deck Shines A Light On “Midamericana” With Self-Titled Debut LP

Jared Deck seems to fit the profile of a workingman’s troubadour. He was raised on a family farm in an Oklahoma town with a population of 1,200 and grew up working in the fields and at his family’s grocery store before eventually getting a job on the oil rigs that dot the landscape of the Southwest. He even worked in a factory before it outsourced its jobs overseas. All of this may sound straight out of a Steve Earle or John Mellancamp song, and it should come as no surprise that artists like that can be heard in Jared Deck’s own music, which he proudly calls “Midamericana”. The beauty of Deck is that he is not just another wide-eyed kid thinking he can hop on the Americana train with an acoustic song about dusty roads and heartbreak. After finding himself desperate for work, Deck spent six formative years working as a pianist at a gospel church. It was here where he learned just how important it is for music to have soul. He also refined his skills on the piano, which today he has been known to put towards playing the kind of fire and brimstone boogie woogie that made a young Jerry Lee Lewis a rock and roll star.

On May 6th Jared Deck will release his self-titled debut album and today we are excited to present an exclusive sneak preview stream of it right here on Glide Magazine. Throughout the album, Deck walks the line between rowdy, Red Dirt swagger on songs like “17 Miles”, “The American Dream”, “Hope KS”, and “Hell On Wheels” with a voice that carries traces of Bruce Springsteen and Ryan Bingham, and mellower, more heartfelt and personal material like “Wrong Side Of The Night”, “Wait For You”, and “Unusually Blessed”. To pull the whole thing together Deck kept it close to home, working with Grammy-nominated producer Wes Sharon (John Fulbright, Parker Millsap) and recording at 115 Recording in Norman, Oklahoma. The closeness of this material shines throughout the album.

Summing up the album in his own words, Jared Deck says, “I wanted to tell the story of where I come from, to speak frankly about my home. But truly, this story is my own, and writing it required swallowing a lot of pride, looking into a paper mirror, and writing things that were uncomfortable to admit. In popular music, honesty is often replaced with braggadocio. For a singer to say, ‘look how good I have it,’ well I just don’t relate to that. My songs are about struggle and overcoming failure, to which I definitely relate. There’s this quote from [Dave Eggers’ novel] What Is The What that I love: ‘To struggle is to strengthen my faith, my hope, and my belief in humanity.’ Falling flat on my face, standing up, dusting myself off, and growing. That’s my story and I’m not the only one.”

Jared Beck releases his self-titled debut LP on May 6th. For more info check out jareddeckmusic.com.

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