Some musicians sound like they are moving Americana music, into new directions, and David Mayfield is one of them. Mayfield paid his dues playing bass for his family’s bluegrass band, alongside his younger sister, the singer/songwriter, Jessica Lea Mayfield. He handled bass on her debut record, Blasphemy So Heartfelt and performed same in her touring band.
Mayfield was also been a “gun-for-hire†for pick-up gigs in the tourist filled honky-tonks on Nashville’s lower Broadway and was also the lead guitarist and contributing songwriter for roots band Cadillac Sky, currently on indefinite hiatus.
He has also toured with The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Songs and Willie Nelson.
Mayfield’s self-titled debut was pretty much unremarkable, straight-ahead bluegrass fair. His upcoming Kickstarter funded release Good Man Down things get a bit more daring.
Mayfield said in a recent press release. “I feel like this record is more mature. Now that I’ve been touring so much I have had the chance to try new songs live and see how they are accepted, and to construct an album that is more of a cohesive thought.â€
On the song Human Cannonball (below) Mayfield’s high-tenor meshes well with the melancholy, love-lost theme and the bluegrass influenced sound that are steeped in country music tradition. But the arrangement, and soaring chorus, shifts the song into the pop-folk territory of R.E.M, the Avetts and Mumford and Co.
It speaks well of that maturity Mayfield spoke of that he doesn’t get trapped in the saccharine mechanizations of the last two and comes closer to the best of the former.
Good Man Down is will be released April 1 on Beautywood Records.
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Wow, what a wonderful start!! and a lovely song.
after a long time heard a song starting with just voilin!!