Mobile Bay area singer-songwriter Abe Partridge is preparing to release his new album, “Cotton Fields and Blood for Days,” with a hometown celebration at Skate Mountain Records in Daphne. The label debut marks a new chapter for an artist whose raw, acoustic-driven sound has steadily built a following across the Southeast.
Partridge signed with the Mobile Bay area label last year, and the upcoming release party at the label’s Daphne headquarters on 5th Street will give fans an early chance to hear the new record performed live. Tickets for the release show are being sold through Eventbrite.
Known for pairing folk and country instrumentation with unflinching, lyric-driven songwriting, Partridge first drew regional attention with his debut album, “White Trash Lipstick,” which introduced listeners to his gravelly vocal delivery and unvarnished storytelling. Since then, his reputation as one of the region’s most distinctive performers has continued to grow with each live show.
“I guess the most important thing is honesty and believability in your material,” Partridge said. “It doesn’t matter how good of a songwriter or a lyricist you are. If it doesn’t come across as believable, then it lies flat. I don’t like listening to stuff unless I believe, or at least, I believe that the artist believes it.”
“Cotton Fields and Blood for Days” blends lyrical beauty with instrumental arrangements that stay gentle and melancholy even on the record’s lighter-hearted tracks, such as “I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker” and “Our Babies Will Never Grow Up to Be Astronauts.” Underneath that occasional levity, the album maintains Partridge’s signature mix of splendor and angst rooted in Southern themes, most notably on the title-inspiring track “The Ghosts of Mobile.”
Partridge said the haunting song grew out of a late-night walk through downtown Mobile after a show at The Listening Room of Mobile.
The record collects eight original songs in all, delivered in a gravelly tone that has drawn comparisons to a late-career Tom Waits as much as to the Southern Gothic storytelling of Townes Van Zandt, one of the songwriters Partridge counts among his biggest influences.
“I walked up to the corner of St. Francis and Royal,” he said. “You look down one side of the road, and they have the big Raphael Semmes statue. If you look down the other side, you see down into places that you might not want to be at night. It became the title because it was representative of the feel of the album. It’s heavy, and it’s Southern. It fit with the songs that ended up on my album.”
The new record shows a more polished level of production than Partridge’s earlier work, largely credited to Nashville-based producer Shawn Byrne, whom Partridge met at a songwriters competition in Gulf Shores during his very first performance. Byrne has continued to guide Partridge in the studio ever since, and helped connect him with Mobile native Molly Thomas, who contributes backing vocals on the album. The record also features percussionist Thelonious Jefferson Scruggs and folk cellist Courtney Blackwell of the group Honeyboy & Boots, another connection Partridge made through the Gulf Shores songwriters contest.
Despite the added studio texture, Partridge said Byrne worked to preserve the raw character that has defined his sound from the start.
“He gets my music, and he understands my approach,” Partridge said. “I might be a little different from other local artists in that I don’t view myself as a musician or an entertainer. I see myself as a communicator. I try to communicate with my art. Going into a studio and saying that is different.”
Partridge draws much of his songwriting material from a varied life that has included work as a manual laborer, a soldier and a Baptist minister, a period that ended in a crisis of faith that ultimately steered him toward music. Citing songwriters such as Townes Van Zandt and Bob Dylan as influences, Partridge said his winding path has given him a wide range of perspectives to write from.
“I feel like I’ve been in a really unique set of circumstances to have walked all these different walks over the past 37 years,” Partridge said. “I’ve been a whole lot of different stuff and lived a lot of different ways. It allows me to put myself into that mindset and write from different perspectives.”
Along with performing songs from the new album, Partridge plans to display his folk art at the release party. The pieces, etched into plywood covered in roofing tar, emerged from the same period of personal searching that shaped his music and carry the same raw, Southern-inflected style. The artwork was originally created purely for Partridge’s own enjoyment until publicist Michelle Roche and Jeff Wooding of Nature/Nurture Artist Management spotted it during a visit to his home.
“They came to my house one day when we were talking about releasing the record,” Partridge said. “They saw my art on the walls and started freaking out and saying that it’s great. I went back to my junk room and pulled out some of my other pieces, and they were flipping out about it. It’s weird and oddball, but some folks dig it.”
Looking beyond the release party, Partridge said he plans to keep up a heavy touring schedule and has already begun sketching out ideas for his next album. He hopes “Cotton Fields and Blood for Days” will help carry his music beyond the Southeast and onto a national stage.
The release party will be held at Skate Mountain Records’ headquarters, located at 105 5th St. in Daphne. Tickets are $20 and available in advance through Eventbrite, with additional details posted at the label’s website, www.skatemountainrecords.com.