Victoria Liedtke & Jason Ringenberg Announce New Album

by Glenn Sargeant | Jan 17, 2024

Victoria Liedtke and Jason Ringenberg have released the new single ‘Come To Me’, which is out now on all DSPs and is taken from their forthcoming duets album More Than Words Can Tell, out on Friday 5th April 2024. The project sees the duo deep dive into the early songwriting partnership of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, cherry-picking musical gems and little heard tracks from their expansive back catalogue.Parton and Wagoner’s original first came out in 1973 on the Love And Music album but Victoria and Jason’s reimagined version of the track is as evocative and fulfilled as the original. It’s also one of three tracks on the upcoming record to feature string arrangements by Sean O’Hagan (Stereolab, High Llamas, Microdisney), which on ‘Come To Me’ has added a depth and subtle atmospheric charm.About the track Victoria comments, When I first came across the original recording, it sounded like could’ve been written by Lee Hazlewood (but naturally it was a Dolly-penned track, the versatile genius that she is). The lyrics are very tender and earnest but expressed through this filter of world-weariness and desolation. This really put me on the path take the song full tilt spooky cowboy when it came to our arrangement. “The original arrangement is restrained and concise yet also feels so sweeping and drenched in atmosphere. With our version, the challenge was to strike that balance — leaning into the dramatic elements while still very much honouring the sparseness and space between. I enlisted Bryan Scary to provide some timpani, vibrophone and other tuned percussion sounds – all of which really helped to place the song squarely into spaghetti western territory.” The new track follows the pairs version of ‘Life Ride’s The Train’, which was written and recorded by Porter Wagoner in 1972 and later covered by Dolly and Porter on their 1975 album Say Forever You’ll Be Mine. Watch the video here.Coined the “Godfather of Americana” by Mojo magazine, the former Jason and The Scorchers frontman Jason Ringenberg was awarded a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance’ by the Americana Music Association in 2009 and was intrigued when Liedtke approached him with the project idea.As Ringenberg states, “When Victoria contacted me about being the ‘Porter’ in this project, I was super excited. The Dolly-Porter duets are some of the finest duets ever recorded in country music history. I am a huge fan of them. Once we dove into the project, I was supremely impressed by the production ethic and creative ambition that Victoria brought to the table. She didn’t slavishly copy the originals. In fact, she and her team created entirely new interpretations of those classic songs.”Victoria and Jason recorded the album at Vale Studios in Worcester, UK in the Summer of 2022 with a predominantly UK based band. The band features CJ Hillman on electric guitar and slide guitar (Billy Bragg/Yola), John Parker on double bass (Nizlopi), Lewis ‘Burner’ Pugh on acoustic guitar and Tim Prottey-Jones on drums (First Time Flyers) as well as a plethora of guest musicians throughout.Originally from Oklahoma, Victoria moved to the UK eight years ago and now resides in the Yorkshire Dales. “What made this project so fun was being able to bring together these incredible UK musicians that come from the worlds of Americana, Country, Folk and Pop and inject these 50 year old classic American country songs into this musical melting pot.”The album was produced By Victoria Liedtke, co-produced by Elliot Vaughan and mixed by Liedtke & Vaughan.