TRACE ADKINS RETURNS WITH “JESUS AND JONES”
ON BBR MUSIC GROUP’S WHEELHOUSE RECORDS
Lyric Video Live Now/ New Single at Digital Retailers This Friday
“TRYING TO LIVE LIKE MY HEROES DID IS THE HARDEST KIND OF LIVING THERE IS…”
Photo Credit: Kristin Barlowe; Cover Design: Glenn Sweitzer
(January 5, 2016 – Nashville, TN) – Trace Adkins is back with “Jesus and Jones,” a song about walking the line between temptation and good intentions. It’s Adkins’ first single with Wheelhouse Records, part of the BBR Music Group, and was written by Jim McCormick, Casey Beathard and Tyler Farr. The official lyric video is now live and the song will be available across all digital retailers and streaming partners this Friday, January 8th.
Watch the official lyric video for “Jesus and Jones” HERE.
Prior to the holidays, a live recording of the song appeared online and TasteofCountry.com observed, “Adkins’ return hardly comes hat in hand. Physically and sonically he’s a leaner version of the singer that returned to rehab in 2014, but no less aggressive. With “Jesus and Jones” he’s doubled-down on roughneck with no promises that he won’t cross that line again.”
In a special email to fans with a limited-time free download of the new song, Trace stated, “this is our first single off a new album that’ll come out later this year. This is a song that’s autobiographical. The first thing I ever did behind a microphone was singing bass in a gospel quartet. At the same time, I was playing guitar and singing in honky tonks, so, that’s when the struggle began…the wrestling match between ‘Jesus’ and ‘Jones’ and I still struggle with that.”
Like its subject matter, the uptempo, hard-driving song juxtaposes Adkins’ rich baritone with Gospel choirs, electric guitars and lyrics both pious and risqué. The song opens with a confession: “I’m the last one standing every Saturday night, all the rights feel wrong and the wrongs feel right but every Sunday morning I see the light again.” Later, it struggles with walking the line: “I need to find some middle ground between let ‘er rip and settling down, but I go from dry to drowned, lost to found, stone cold sober to just plain stoned.”