Dylan LeBlanc – Pastimes

22-06-2022

Dylan LeBlanc (born March 9, 1990 in Shreveport, Louisiana) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Dylan LeBlanc is an American musician and artist. Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, LeBlanc began performing at age fifteen. In Shreveport and Muscle Shoals, Alabama, he began performing at local venues. From a young age, LeBlanc watched his father perform at various clubs and bars. He became intrigued with musicianship and the way of life. At the age of nineteen, after parting ways with the band Abraham, he acquired a vast amount of original material. Then, he was signed by Rough Trade Records who released his first album "Pauper's Field". At infancy LeBlanc's mother and father divorced. Until the age of nine, LeBlanc lived with his mother in Blanchard, Louisiana, a small town in the northwest corner of Shreveport. Working full-time cleaning houses, LeBlanc's mother raised Dylan and his two siblings. At the age of ten, LeBlanc relocated to Muscle Shoals so his father could pursue his musical career as a professional country music songwriter. In Muscle Shoals, LeBlanc acquired a unique musical education. He spent late nights watching musicians record at the studios where his father played on sessions for the songs that he wrote. At the age of fourteen he moved back to Shreveport to live with his grandmother and began to attend high school at Captain Shreve High School. While there, LeBlanc met musician Daniel Goodwill and began playing music with an alternative rock band, Jimmy Sad Eyes Blue. Goodwill inspired LeBlanc to begin writing his own music. After a few years of playing with Jimmy Sad Eyes Blue, LeBlanc was forced to attend rehab. Following rehab, rather than returning to high school, LeBlanc decided to pursue a full-time music career. LeBlanc joined the local Muscle Shoals Punk Rock band after the band lost its lead singer to the Sons of Roswell and the band toured throughout the southeast. A few years later, LeBlanc became a co-founder of the band Abraham. He made his first recordings with Abraham at Fame Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals. At that time, the studio's house engineer Ben Tanner (of Alabama Shakes) was a member of LeBlanc's band. An American singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Dylan LeBlanc's smoky, languid, Townes Van Zandt- and Fleet Foxes-inspired Americana draws from a wide array of influences, but leans heavily on the music of the Deep South. The son of Muscle Shoals session player James LeBlanc, Dylan emerged in 2010 with the country-folk forward "Paupers Field", but began incorporating elements of breezy West Coast pop and jangly guitar rock on subsequent releases like "Cautionary Tale" (2016) and "Renegade" (2019). The Shreveport, Louisiana native spent his formative years surrounded by some of the region's finest musicians (his father, singer/songwriter/guitarist James LeBlanc, is a longtime Muscle Shoals session player). Dylan began writing his own songs at 11, and by his late teens, had developed a soulful, bluesy voice and guitar style that resonated with the sights and sounds of his musical youth. He released his brooding and sparse debut, "Paupers Field", on Rough Trade in 2010 at the ripe old age of 19, followed by the likeminded "Cast the Same Old Shadow" in 2012. 2016's lush and compelling "Cautionary Tale" saw LeBlanc enlist help from a backing band, as did 2019's more pop-leaning "Renegade". Dylan LeBlanc has spent the last decade releasing four acclaimed albums, winning praise for his arresting alt-country style, collaborating with the likes of Emmylou Harris and Brittany Howard, and sharing stages with heavyweights like Bruce Springsteen and Lucinda Williams. Now, the Muscle Shoals songwriter is taking a moment to pay homage to the artists who inspired his unique sound with the "Pastimes" EP, a collection of six covers that LeBlanc says inspired him musically and spiritually. Muscle Shoals singer-songwriter Dylan LeBlanc has released his new EP "Pastimes", a self-produced collection of covers of songs from Glen Campbell, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Buffalo Springfield, and JJ Cale that inspired him to create his own acclaimed alt-country sound. Pastimes is released on orange-colored vinyl. LeBlanc has also shared a new visualizer for his cover of Led Zeppelin's "Going to California." : "When I was 15 years old I got my first paying gig at a local coffee shop called Juri's," says LeBlanc. "I remembered this girl that sat behind me in class and I bonded over "Led Zeppelin IV". I remember I had gotten a Led Zeppelin box set that year for Christmas, and her favorite song was 'Going to California.' I rushed home to learn that song for her and spent hours in my room at my grandmother's house where I lived at the time so I could play it for her and impress her. This song will always hold a special place in my heart. I love this record and this era of music that I think will always remain untouchable forever and always." Each song was chosen for its deeply personal impact : JJ Cale's "Sensitive Kind" takes LeBlanc back to the smoky dive bars his father would bring him along to as a child. Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" brings him back to age 15, playing his first coffee shop gigs and learning the song to impress a girl. Buffalo Springfield's "Expecting to Fly" reminds him of teenage joyrides, speeding through the country and listening to music to escape life's harsh realities. He learned the art of storytelling through songs with the Rolling Stones' haunting "Play With Fire" and Bob Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell," a track that he compares to reading a Southern Gothic Faulkner novel. And Glen Campbell's "Gentle On My Mind" is a song he remembers from his early childhood, when his grandfather, also a guitarist, would throw parties where friends would gather to drink and sing and forget their troubles. Two years on from his last album, Louisiana-born Dylan LeBlanc joins the recent ranks of those who've been busy with cover versions for his punningly-titled new EP. "Pastimes" is an eclectic set of songs with personal associations and a homage to those who inspired his sound, kicking off with the Rolling Stones' 'Play With Fire', the 1965 B side to 'The Last Time', here with a tribal drum rhythm, sweeping strings and distant mixed vocals. Teenage memories are evoked with a faithful dreamy reading of Buffalo Springfield's 'Expecting To Fly', while JJ Cale's 'Sensitive Kind' serves to recall being taken to smoky dive bars by his father as a child, the mood here reminiscent of The Zombies' 'Time Of The Season'. LeBlanc says he comes from a heavy country music background, his father making his living as a writer for the Nashville Machine, while his grandfather was a guitarist who regularly used to have folk round for singing and drinking parties, one of his favourite songs and regularly heard around the home, being the John Hartford-penned Glen Campbell hit Gentle On My Mind, the homage here coloured with steel and strings. Talking about the song, he recalls : "My grandfather in the early '70s in his early thirties was convinced to make payments on a Gibson guitar on consignment at the local music store along with a song book with the scales and chords and hit songs of the era inside with directions on how to play them. He loved this song and it was heavily played around the house and passed and sang at gatherings and parties where everyone was drinking and laughing and feeling no pain as they say. I love the story of this song about a drifter roaming from place [to place] untethered to anyone or anything therefore making the moment of missing his muse more pure. I can relate as I have naturally always wanted to roam from place to place and be free. I love this song so much and it holds a nostalgic and wonderful place in my heart." Meanwhile, Dylan's 'Blind Willie McTell' is a haunted, piano-accompanied six-minute nod to the writers from whom he learnt the art of storytelling. It ends with him reliving his teenage years as a 15-year-old, playing his first coffee shop gigs around Shreveport and Muscle Shoals and learning songs to impress the girls, case in point being this breathily sung, shimmering acoustic fingerpicked take on Led Zep's 'Going To California'. Hopefully, a new album is due not too far down the line, but for now, these are very welcome diversions.

A1 Play With Fire (The Rolling Stones) 3:07

A2 Expecting To Fly (Buffalo Springfield) 2:51

A3 Sensitive Kind (J.J. Cale) 4:06

B1 Gentle On My Mind (Glen Campbell) 4:06

B2 Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan) 6:02

B3 Going To California (Led Zeppelin) 4:42

Bass - James LeBlanc

Cello - Austin Hoke

Drums - Tommy Hardin

Guitar, Lead Vocals - Dylan LeBlanc

Piano, Organ, Keyboards - Jim "Moose" Brown

Violin - Laura Epling