Weird Thought Thinker - Joshua Hedley
Our LCM featured artist today is the excellent Nashville based singer-songwriter Joshua Hedley. Joshua is currently on a European tour and will be coming to London on the 3rd September headlining at The Old Blue Last near Liverpool Street and Old Broad Street stations. Our LCM #SongOfTheDay is Joshua's latest single 'Weird Thought Thinker' taken from his recently released debut album 'Mr. Jukebox' via Third Man Records.
An accomplished fiddle player, Joshua Hedley felt inexplicably drawn toward the instrument as a child. He got his hands on his own fiddle at age 8, and by 12, he was playing with middle-aged pickers at the VFW. At 19, he moved from his native Florida to Nashville, where he became an in-demand sideman at Robert’s Western World and other bars, and ultimately, a well-respected frontman. Armed with an easy croon and prodigious fiddle playing, he became known as the Mayor of Lower Broad. He hit the road to perform with artists including Jonny Fritz, Justin Townes Earle, and more, while the 2015 documentary Heartworn Highways Revisited featured Joshua prominently.
Joshua didn’t start writing his own songs until he was about 28 years-old. So on the backend of his 20s, he finally started writing, eventually unlocking a flood of clarity and creativity. The heartbreaking, distilled, defiantly classic country that poured out of him became 'Mr. Jukebox', a salve and beacon for 60s honky-tonk devotees everywhere.
When asked what he hopes listeners get out of 'Mr. Jukebox', Joshua doesn’t hesitate. “I just want people to remember they have feelings, and that they’re valid,” he says. “Not everything is Coors Light and tailgates. There are other aspects of life that aren’t so great that people experience. They’re part of life, part of what shapes people. And that’s worth noting.”