âThis album is my pièce de resistance,â says Joshua Hedley of All Hat, his lively new collection of Western Swing tunes. âItâs all been building up to this moment. I feel like Iâm making music I love more than any other style.â Produced by Ray Benson of Asleep at the WheelâHedleyâs hero since childhoodâthe album brims with excitement, wit, and verve, as Hedley expertly navigates the tricky dance rhythms of this jazzy style of twang. Itâs a sharp left turn in a career defined by sharp left turns, following close on the
heels of his 2018 debut Mr. Jukebox, which explored â60s countrypolitan and
established him as one of the finest old-school country crooners in all of Nashville. Released in 2022, Neon Blue jumped ahead a few decades as Hedley turned his attention to that much-maligned period in country music: the early â90s, when a new wave of singing cowboy took their twang into rock arenas.
All Hat doesnât try to update the style, because Hedley understands that it doesnât need any kind of modernizing. It can sound as immediate and urgent and just plain fun now as it ever did. And he hopes folks will get up and dance. âAt its core Western Swing is just dance music. Bob Wills didnât play theatres; he played dance halls. The music is for dancing, and thatâs what I wanted to come through on these songs. I just want to show people how big a genre country music is and how deep it goes. Thereâs such a diversity of sounds in country music. Itâs not just one little box that everything fits into.â