“Musically, the eerie beauty of the fiddle and pedal steel comes from Jackson Browne’s longtime companion, the late David Lindley, and the vocal harmonies have a Chris and Morgane Stapelton feel, like in “Starting Over,” says singer-songwriter Mike Montrey about the melodic warmth of his new single “Stained Glass Window Panes” that Glide is premiering below.
With his namesake band (Mike Montrey Band), the longtime troubadour has made his most fully realized album yet with Love, Time & Mortality, due out August 23rd. His previous collaborations with names like Grammy-winning producers Jim Scott and Marc Swersky brought different flavors to his music. However, with Love, Time & Mortality, Montrey brings us into his most personal songwriting yet.
Aided by an impeccable cast of musicians, like pedal steel wizard Jack Stanton and upright bassist Mike Noordzy, vocalist Jen Augustine, Santo Rizzolo on drums, violinist Nicole Scorsone, and John Ginty on Hammond B3 organ, Vintage Vibe, and piano, every passage hits with uncanny human warmth and intimacy.
Montrey spins an authentic vibe that is now rarely seen in today’s trend-jumping roots scene, where stylish pretensions conceal heartless performances. Artists like Jim Lauderdale, Joe Ely, and Robert Earl Keen come to mind when listening to Montrey deliver his emotive songs with a throaty delivery.
“Stained Glass Window Panes” is about my Mom and her often sage and clairvoyant advice, as told through my recollections of her love for colored glass. She used to collect door panels with colored glass and stand them up in the yard and in the house. She particularly loved cobalt blue. She passed away in 2015 at 63 years young. She serendipitously gifted me my first guitar at 16 years old. She was a classically trained pianist and a school teacher. After divorcing my father when I was four years old, she married an alcoholic who, while at times was a decent partner, ultimately contributed greatly to her death from liver disease,” describes Montrey.
“Aside from my aforementioned late Mother, it’s also influenced by the act of storytelling via a setting – I was sittin’ in the living room, sun shinin’ like it used to do, through the stained glass window panes, that you carried through the pouring rain – in the way Jason Isbell sets up “Middle of the Morning,” “Well, I tried to open up my window and let the light come in – I step outside in the middle of the morning.”
