LEDFOOT
I DO BELIEVE
new single
out 05.04.24
(TBC Records)
included on
OUTSIDERS
new album
LP | CD – out 31.05.24
digital – out 03.05.24
pre-order LP | CD | pre-save/add digital
Tim Scott McConnell (aka Ledfoot) is an American musician and songwriter who has been based in Norway for the last three decades. Starting out in 1980 as a member of The Rockats while still in his teens, he then recorded two solo records in the mid-’80s before co-founding The Havalinas, who also issued two albums and supported Bob Dylan on his ‘Oh Mercy’ world tour to promote the first of them. His 1987 solo song ‘High Hopes’ was subsequently covered twice by Bruce Springsteen, initially for the B’side of a 1996 single and again for what became the title song of a 2014 album that went to no. 1 in multiple territories, including both the US and UK.
In between those boosts from The Boss, McConnell had begun recording a highly distinctive brand of Gothic Blues as Ledfoot from his base in the Norwegian woods, with his first of six albums to date under that name appearing in 2007. His thickly-strung 12-string acoustic guitar played with a brass slide and stomp box served as accompaniment to his weather-beaten voice, sounding raw and genuinely real. He has gone on to win the Spellemann Award (Norwegian Grammy) in the Blues category twice, including for his most recent recording, 2022’s ‘Cofffin Nails’.
His magnificent seventh, ‘Outsiders’, consists of nine self-written new songs and, for the first time as Ledfoot, it sees him accompanied by a full band for a record that operates on a wider musical spectrum, albeit one still rooted in his 12-string sound. Gliding effortlessly between songs redolent of Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons, Bruce Springsteen and even Mink DeVille, ‘Outsiders’ was recorded in just four days at Studio Nyhagen in the countryside north of Oslo and its resulting ‘live vibe’ stands as testimony to truly great musicianship.
A first single from the album, ‘I Do Believe’ is released today, with Ledfoot simply but cryptically stating of the song: “Some people believe in heaven and hell. As for me, seeing is believing and I’ve truly only seen one….in hell….I do believe.”
‘Outsiders’ sees Ledfoot himself once again demonstrate his excellent songwriting and unique storytelling skills via vocal performances packed with all the requisite integrity and authority. The album title itself is also no coincidence; a collection of songs about people living on the edge, each in different ways relates the story of an outsider, those who might find themselves lost and ultimately dealt a dud hand in their life’s story, but at the same time unwilling to accept defeat without a fight.
“‘Outsiders’ is a little homage to my influences growing up in the south [USA],” states McConnell. “It is a record about just that; the losers, outcasts, wannabes, small people with big dreams. I grew up listening to gunfighter and murder ballads and this is a record for all those without hope and the hopeless, their stories and the dreams that keep going….like me.”
