Grey DeLisle – The Grey Album
Los Angeles-based GRAMMY-winning, Emmy-nominated singer/songwriter, Grey DeLisle, has released her new double LP, The Grey Album. The album, which debuted this week at #8 on the Euro Americana Chart, is out today via Hummin’bird Records.
Throughout its 20 roots rock and honky tonk-tinged vignettes, DeLisle tells the stories of a divorcee with small children, pays homage to her Mexican heritage, recounts hard-fought relationships crumbling in the wake of each party’s “humanness,” and sings of holding onto those you love with everything you’ve got.
DeLisle turns out songs the way Stephen King turns out novels. The way Ryan Adams creates covers. The way Krispy Kreme delivers donuts. Sweet and satisfying, and staggering in sheer volume. “Prolific” doesn’t even begin to cut it.
One might be shocked to learn that she once endured a long songwriting dry spell after a bout of crippling stage fright, turning her focus on forging a brilliant career as one of Hollywood’s top voice actors (The Simpsons, Scooby-Doo, Spongebob Squarepants, and more) and being the mom of three children. In the isolation of 2020, the spark came back, and she began writing feverishly. The songs were coming so fast that she decided to record them with her longtime creative partner, Murry Hammond of Old 97’s, with whom she has collaborated for over two decades on countless musical projects (and one human being, their son, wunderkind visual artist Tex Hammond).
DeLisle worked with longtime friend and producer Marvin Etzioni to bring her vision to life. The artists on The Grey Album are a Who’s Who of Americana and roots rock: strings by Tammy Rogers (Emmylou Harris, Neil Diamond, Patty Loveless), horns by David Ralicke (Lucinda Williams, Beck, Morrissey, John Cale), pedal steel by Greg Leisz (basically every major American artist who has ever used pedal steel). They contributed their parts in the coolest game of relay ever; after the original analog recordings were digitally mastered by renowned sound engineer Todd Burke (Ben Harper, Albert Hammond Jr., Belle and Sebastian), DeLisle would send the tracks off to Rogers, who laid down the heavenly strings, passed it on to Leisz for the pedal steel magic, then on to Ralicke for horns.
Along the way, DeLisle kept writing more songs and meeting more artists with whom she had just had to collaborate. At a dinner party, DeLisle was seated next to the Runaways’ Cherie Currie, which she took as a sign as she had written album track “40 Something Runaway” that same morning. Would Currie like to sing on it? She sure would!
This kind of serendipity seems to follow DeLisle everywhere she goes. Stephen McCarthy (Long Ryders, Jayhawks) came on board for “Didn’t We Try,” and Etzioni lent his song “Convince Me” to the tracklist, one he originally wrote for Roy Orbison before his sudden death in 1988.
Over five years, DeLisle deftly intertwined these collaborative threads into the rich tapestry of The Grey Album. Infused with the Americana artistry of the many contributors who shaped it, the record is delivered in Grey DeLisle’s unmistakable style—bold, evocative, and entirely her own. DeLisle is currently on a West Coast tour with Old 97’s, a list of dates is below. Be sure to follow her at the links provided for all the latest news and updates.
TOUR DATES w/ OLD 97’S
4/3 – The Siren – Morro Bay, CA
4/4 – The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA
4/5 – Felton Music Hall – Felton, CA
4/6 – Crystal Bay Casino – Crystal Bay, NV
4/8 – Lost on Main – Chico, CA
4/9 – The Domino Room – Bend, OR
4/10 – The Crocodile – Seattle, WA
4/11 – Revolution Hall – Portland, OR
4/12 – The District at Knitting Factory – Spokane, WA
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