Shannon McNally – Coldwater

Shannon McNally is a rare woman artist whose musical center of gravity is a love for JJ Cale and classic rock. On Coldwater, the follow-up to her critically acclaimed Geronimo, McNally leads her Mississippi-based band, Hot Sauce through the juncture where blues, country and soul music meet – made all the more powerful by the keys of the late, great Jim Dickinson. 

McNally sings her sly, sultry originals with a voice that combines the ache and silver of Emmylou Harris with the delivery of a realist like Townes Van Zandt or Gillian Welch, especially on her raw take of Waylon Jennings’ “Lonesome Ornery and Mean”— underscored by the guitar tones of Eric Eaton, a disciple of RL Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. The New York Times says she’s “irresistible,” and American Songwriter praises Coldwater with,  “Willfully loose, swampy country-soul tracks, her sensual, humid singing smack-dab in the middle.”

Listen: Coldwater