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Song Premiere: "Don't Let It Bring You Down" by Grant Earl LaValley (Neil Young cover)

Grant Earl LaValley; Photo Credit: Nathan C. Ward
5 September 2017

Grant Earl LaValley; Photo Credit: Nathan C. Ward

Grant Earl LaValley is an American singer-songwriter. Ohio’s misfit son exposed to harsher California desert landscapes of Joshua Tree delivers on the long lost love letters you’ve waited for at the mailbox all of those years. Hoping for a promise of return, you receive instead word of yet another lonely voyage… Isolation waters the fertile land stretching out in all directions. LaValley’s unapologetic crooning calls the banshees back from the frozen wilderness and welcomes them into his modest desert cabin.

A small crew of creative visitors contribute to LaValley’s debut full length, From LaValley Below, releasing on October 13th via Exit Stencil Recordings. Harmonica, lap-steel, and female vocals move around acoustic guitar, all the while LaValley’s crestfallen and introspective lyrics roll downstream like gravel under water, catching the light and sweeping the riverbank grasses along with it. A kindred spirit with contemporary songwriters like Ryley Walker, LaValley also conjures images of a gothic Gene Clark collaborating with a desert-dwelling Bonnie “Prince” Billy —-with the blessing of Townes Van Zandt.

LaValley pay tribute to Neil Young with a cover of the legend’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down.” In a fortuitous coincidence, Young will actually be releasing a new studio album, Hitchhiker, on September 8th via Reprise Records that was originally recorded in 1976 in California…

LaValley reveals the inspiration behind covering “Don’t Let It Bring You Down, confiding, “I originally fell in love with Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” when i was a kid, from listening to the Annie Lennox cover with my mom. It wasn’t till I was in my early twenties that I really got into After the Gold Rush and fell for it all over again. I’m not a trained musician, so when I want to cover something I just listen to it and play whatever I can that sounds close. I’m really happy with the tones we got on my version. It would be a dream come true if somehow Neil himself would give it a listen…”