Longview - Sunny Sweeney with Kayla Ray at the Westside Bowl
Sunny Sweeney with Kayla Ray at the Westside Bowl
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Doors at 6 Show at 7 Tickets $20 Advance $25 Day Of Sunny Sweeney www.sunnysweeney.com/ Following your instincts is not as easy as Sunny Sweeney makes it look. A patron saint of broken hearts on the mend, Sweeney comforts the rest of us by being honest with herself––and everybody else. She is her generation’s sly country conscience, warm but stubborn, sad but funny, rowdy but thoughtful. “I am so glad I’ve been able to get this far in this business and still hold my music values,” Sweeney says. “Being independent has given me the freedom to do more of what I want.” For Sweeney, doing what she wants has meant crafting smart honky tonk for about two decades. “I really do love country music,” she says. “For me, it’s the stories and hooks.” Her new album Rhinestone Requiem is a delectable testament to that love, brimming with achingly pretty melodies and grown-up storytelling. It’s also an expertly assembled grab bag of the traditional song structures that have built country music, one three-quarter whirl at a time. If anyone has the bona fides to be country music’s loving, defiant standard-bearer, it’s Sweeney. In addition to releasing 5 critically acclaimed albums since her 2006 debut Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame, she has become a trusted song curator and advocate for other artists as the host of her SiriusXM shows The Sunny Side of Life on Outlaw Country and Sunny Side Up on Willie’s Roadhouse. Sweeney keeps adding new feathers to her signature hat: She and her longtime guitarist Harley Husbands produced Rhinestone Requiem and are working as producers on additional projects. “We both have very strong points and very strong opinions,” Sweeney says of Husbands with a laugh. “But we work very well together.” Born in Houston and raised in East Texas, Sweeney made her home the road before settling down in the hills of Hendersonville, Tennessee, a couple of years ago. The release of Rhinestone Requiem represents another milestone. “This is the first time I’ve made a record when I don’t have relationship problems,” Sweeney says, smiling. “My last album, ‘Married Alone,’ was made right after my divorce. I’ve lived some life. Not all of it’s been pretty. But I feel like that’s what makes really good music.” Sweeney takes her calling as friend to the hurt and alone seriously––and Rhinestone Requiem shines because of it. Recorded at Tommy Detamore’s Cherry Ridge Studio in Floresville, Texas, the album is a compelling snapshot of an artist who knows who she is and what she loves. “I really wanted this album to be a mixture of all the old styles of country music: Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn,” Sweeney says, ticking off a list of some of her idols. “I make music for myself and hope other people like it.”
Indeed, the specter of Lewis looms large from the jump, as the album kicks off with “Find It Where I Can,” the sauntering, boozy warning shot recorded by The Killer, as well as other giants including Waylon Jennings. Sweeney discovered the song during a late-night YouTube deep dive into videos of Lewis and Mickey Gilley hammering away on dueling baby grands. “You know, they’re cousins, and their grandmother taught them how to play piano––that’s why their playing style is so similar!” Sweeney says, relishing the backstory. “And when I heard this song, I knew I had to record it. It’s not like anything else I have, and it’s just so fun to sing and play.”
Jubilantly wry “Diamonds and Divorce Decrees” traces the ruins after a marriage ends, cataloging the pain but looking stubbornly toward happiness. Sweeney has been playing the song live, and has been struck by how strongly audiences have responded. “One night after we played it, a guy came up to the stage and said, ‘I have three days until my divorce is final, and this song made me know everything is going to be fine,’” Sweeney says.
Written with dear friend and frequent collaborator Brennen Leigh, “Traveling On” is a superbly crafted heartbreaker showcasing the devastating power of Sweeney’s voice. Written with Ben Chapman and Erin Enderlin, “Is Tonight the Night (I Make You a Memory)” starts off slow and sad, before speeding up into a bouncy, steel-laced shuffle worthy of The Mavericks. Another Enderlin and Sweeney collaboration with the addition of Gary Nicholson, “I Drink Well with Others” is a winking dancehall duster, while “As Long as There’s a Honky Tonk”––written with Buddy Owens and Galen Griffin––is a swaggering, piano-soaked proclamation of independence.
One of only two album tracks Sweeney didn’t have a hand in writing, “Last Hard Bible” nods to the whimsical grit of its writer and original recording artist, Kasey Chambers, as Sweeney steers the song firmly into saloon-worthy territory. Chambers and her brother, Nash, provide harmonies on Sweeney’s track. When Sweeney joins Chambers for shows in the summer of 2025, it will mark a full-circle moment for Sweeney, who is a longtime fan of the Australian singer-songwriter.
With crying steel, “Waiting for a Reason to Stay” tearfully harnesses the potential of conversational songwriting. “I’ve always wondered what was wrong with me,” Sweeney sings, opening the song with gut-wrenching directness. What follows is a meditation on the days after you’ve decided to go––but haven’t left yet. “I’ve had records about the bad side of divorce,” Sweeney says. “This is the light at the end of the tunnel.” Written with Owens and Monty Holmes, album closer “Half Lit in 3/4 Time” is a masterclass in country songwriting, as line after line pays tribute to honky tonk’s beloved instruments and golden standards. Featuring mournful fiddle, “Houston Belongs to Me” already sounds like a classic, as Sweeney’s resilient narrator lays claim to a hot, complex city that she loves. “It’s healing: You’re taking ownership of where you are,” Sweeney says.
It’s an idea Sweeney has embraced in various ways throughout her career: Lean into who and what you are––and revel in the liberation that brings. Her fierce independence has allowed her to speak to us with the care of a trusted confidant who sees our hurts and is rooting for us. “I feel like that’s what I grew up loving about music––I felt like I was their friend,” Sweeney says. “I felt like they were talking––singing––to me.”
Dropping a needle on Kayla Ray’s music can feel a bit like driving down a sunbaked two-lane highway. You roll the windows down, feel a sticky-warm breeze circling your hair and you let the soundtrack of real-life stories fuel every mile of the drive.
And for Ray, a rising country artist and songwriter, that’s no accident. A native of Waco, Texas, Ray was baptized to the tune of Bob Wills and Tanya Tucker. She can recite Merle Haggard deep cuts without missing a beat and, as a kid, Ray often tuned into the Grand Ole Opry with her grandfather, (by whom she was raised) who built a makeshift antenna to ensure the family picked up a long-distance AM signal from faraway Nashville, Tennessee.
She’s spent her early years cutting her teeth in the industry, studying the rules of the road with country music’s Gimble family (Dick and Emily, the son and granddaughter of Country Music Hall of Famer Johnny Gimble) before tour managing for honky-tonk staple Jason Eady. In 2014, she graduated from backstage to centerstage, releasing her first all original album and touring the national independent circuit singing her songs – sprinkled with appreciation for the artists who helped raise her – Hank Williams, Tom T. Hall and, of course, Loretta Lynn.
Since then, she’s released three independent albums and has since built a fan base and a hard-earned ten-year touring history. This, in addition to her 2024 label debut The World’s Weight. A collection of songs doused in days of fall-too-hard love and nights of brown-liquored therapy, it debuted June 7th via Average Joes Entertainment.
“This album is a long time coming,” Ray said. “The songs span a big chapter of my life. The character falls in love, gets her heart broken, rolls around in fits of ravaged independence and falls in and back out of love again. In many ways, through it all, she finds herself and becomes unafraid to express her views of the world just exactly as she sees them.”
Ray decamped to Oklahoma City to cut much of The World’s Weight with producer Giovanni Carnuccio III at Castle Row Studios. The album pulls listeners into Ray’s take on tried-and-true country, with songs like opening number “The Place I Fell In Love With You” – a twangy, freewheelin’ jam that takes listeners on a love-tinged road trip – and standout cut “Carolina Pines,” a thoughtful country-folk stomper delivered straight from the soul.
Her sound isn’t the country-rock throwback of some of today’s top Americana acts, nor is overly stripped-back folk storytelling or old-time roots music. It’s a unique and fearless take on the human condition.
In addition to her own project, in the time since relocating to Nashville, Kayla is writing with some of country music’s more esteemed songwriters. Mark Irwin, Erin Enderlin (who has recorded multiple of their cowrites, one as a duet with Terri Clark!) Liz Hengber, and Keesy Timmer are just a few names in which Kayla is currently sharing credits.
Kayla’s down to earth yet poignant life perspective is a noted asset. Fueled by vulnerability, life experience, ambition, and an unafraid melodic ear, Kayla Ray is a force to be reckoned with.
