Michael Johnathon Releases Evening Song

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PoetMan Records USA will release Evening Song, Michael Johnathon's latest recording project, September 12. The album is an Americana, folk and bluegrass project that covers Johnathon's diversity of influences. Evening Song features a wide range of songs and instrumentation including including a 22-piece orchestra section of violins, violas, cellos and French horns. "I think this is the first album where I felt totally relaxed and completely in control, " Johnathon says. "I had some of my best musical friends, like Rob Ickes and Ben Sollee, helping and encouraging us along the way. I thought merging the folk and bluegrass styles with a tapestry of classical music textures was new. Banjos and guitars, mandolins and dobros with real string sections. I call it "folkestral" ... I don't think roots music fans can find that too often."

The 15 songs on the CD delve into a variety of topics, from "Spirit, " which Johnathon describes as a modern tale of love gone wrong to the haunting "Nightime Star, " a song he wrote from a native American fable of love. The singer picks up an old Leroy Carr song, "In The Evening, " and interprets Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" on banjo. "Go Laddy Go" sounds like an Appalachian classic but it's actually a new song written with classical overtones. "Sunday Song" will strike a chord with those who find the best place to be on Sunday is at home with your family.

Johnathon will release "Blue Highways" as the project's first single via CDX August 9. It will be worked to Bluegrass, Americana, and specialty markets September through November.

Johnathon is known throughout music circles as a great performer who launched one of the most successful radio programs in recent years, Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour. The singer hosts the show each week from the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington, KY, welcoming guests including Roger McGuinn, Marcia Ball, John Cowan, Leroy Parnell, Uncle Earl, John Jorgenson Quintet, Odetta and Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

When asked where he falls within the eclectic circle of singers and musicians he brings to the radio airwaves each week, Johnathon replies, "If you think of folk music as an acoustic musical diamond with many facets - blues and bluegrass, rock and celtic, old timey and new songs - than I'm a folksinger."

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