With a resounding twang and a venerable gravitas, Elijah Ocean evokes the sounds of honky-tonk bars masked with a singer-songwriter flair. The talented storyteller has opened for legends like Dale Watson and emerging stars such as Charlie Crockett, and backed up like-minded talents Zephaniah OHora and Michaela Anne. He’s played to packed houses from the Mercury Lounge to the Troubadour and is a regular at festivals like Stagecoach, Americanafest, and SXSW. And with a name like Elijah Ocean who wouldn’t believe his voice is almost biblical.
With a recent move to Nashville, Ocean will be releasing his new album Born Blue on August 13th. The album will place Ocean in a realm where Americana meets the truthful troubadour realm, mixing the classically comfortable sounds of Yoakam and Prine. Glide is premiering the industrious “Livin’ To Love You” off Born Blue that brings Ocean’s crisply direct Americana with shades of righteous old-timey country and pop sensibilties.
“This is a straight-up song of love and devotion. The narrator is in bed unable to sleep because he’s so excited about spending the next day with his new-found sweetheart. I was mostly influenced by Don Williams and Alan Jackson for this one, and was thinking of a sort of electric bluegrass vibe – fiddle, banjo, steel and electric guitar. Funnily enough, the drums for this track were originally recorded in the studio with an entirely different song, as kind of an end-of-day afterthought. When I got the sessions home I realized I didn’t quite like how it all turned out so I wrote this one based around the original drumbeat and re-recorded everything else. Having Jenee Fleenor on fiddle was really the icing on the cake – I actually cried the first time I heard it, haha,” describes Ocean.
