"Lonesome on My Own," a rock inspired, steel guitar laden tune off Reckless Kelly's upcoming album American Girls, comes from the Austin, Texas via Stanley, Idaho band's working relationship with fellow Idaho native turned Nashville singer-songwriter Jeff Crosby.
"'Lonesome On My Own' was another collaboration with Jeff Crosby as he toured with us playing guitar over the summer of 2019," says Reckless Kelly singer and guitarist Willy Braun. "He wasn't thrilled with the hook he had, so I dug around in my pile of ideas and came up with 'lonesome on my own,' a line from a song I had never finished. It fit pretty well with Crosby's original idea so we finished it up and tracked it in July. We recorded a version with Jeff playing guitar before he had to fly back to Nashville, but after listening a few times the next day we decided it was too fast and tracked it again. It was a bummer to lose his parts, but the end result was worth the do-over. It became the only song on the album without any lead guitar, a rarity for any RK record. Jeff Queen filled the void with some killer steel guitar and the end result is quite pleasing."
Reckless Kelly will release two albums, American Jackpot and American Girls, on May 22. The latter features a stacked list of special guests from the worlds of roots, Americana and country music, including Bukka Allen, Charlie Sexton, Gary Clark Jr., Rosie Flores, Shawn Sahm, Muzzie Braun, Suzy Bogguss and Wade Bowen.
The two new albums tell interconnected stories about American life with the songwriting and musicianship fans have come to expect over Reckless Kelly's 20-plus years as a recording and touring act.
"It's not all about America in your face," Willie Braun told Billboard. "It's things you experience when you live here; characters and situations."
American Jackpot almost came out in 2019, cutting the group's album drought since 2016's Sunset Motel.
"We were actually going to put [American Jackpot] out last year," Braun told Billboard. "But I ended up having this idea to make it a double record at the last minute. We went back into the studio a few months after we had wrapped it up and decided to take our time and not rush it. Since it had already been awhile we wanted to do it right, so we just took our time with it."
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Crosby also helped finish the lyrics of American Jackpot cut "North American Jackpot."
The dual releases will be issued by No Big Deal Records.
