Hadley McCall Thackston - Hadley McCall Thackston

A new artist finds her voice during an unforeseen pilgrimage that starts in Decatur, Georgia and leads her to an old post office on a remote island of Ontario, Canada Hadley McCall Thackston's debut album is utterly charming. Excellent songs and great musical arrangements. Change is a pretty damn effective plea for social justice. Take note Americana fans, especially if you're a fan of Jolie Holland or the Be Good Tanyas. Sam Gazdziak/Country UniverseIn her early 20's, after returning from a year of drama school in Ireland (where she discovered she had more passion for music than theatre), song ideas were forming -- but the matter of shaping her own songs in the shape of her heart was still at hand. She took solace on her home town porch in Decatur, Georgia, took out her guitar and started to tap into her creativity. I started to discover my preference for being outside when I write, and I love the fact that I can be outside but under shelter at the same time. Porch-sittin' is more of a communal tradition, she added, but at first, I didn't really want to put anyone through my still tentative song-birthing process.It was an act of social media fate that coincided with Hadley's trajectory which brought some cool, random threads together. Her best childhood friend, Wyeth Wood, finally convinced to post a clip of a porch performance on Facebook. Within minutes, David Corley -- a long-time friend of Hadley's mother -- and a singer-songwriter whose own path to his debut album is an unusual story unto itself� happened to catch the clip and sent it off to his producer Hugh Christopher Brown. Brown reached out and before Hadley knew it, she ditched her tentative plans to record a demo or two in Nashville and landed on Wolfe Island, Ontario, with a hat box full of songs. In this alt-country chanteuse-songwriter's mind, timeless is always contemporary, whether she is writing and singing about her personal views on spirituality (RedBird), her search for love and romance (Somehow) or her feelings on social justice issues (Change). The music and arrangements flow and shift seamlessly with every sentiment, all the while gently crossing genre boundaries � as with the breezy, jazzy feel of Ghost or her pop/Motown-infused groove on Ellipsis with lyrics that reflect her quirky charm. The album closes with Last Mountain Waltz, a beautiful ode to her beloved late grandparents and the majestic mountains surrounding their home in South Carolina.