Coyle Girelli Shares New Single 'Everyone But Me and You'
(TPH) Upon watching a performance video of vocalist Coyle Girelli, iconic songwriter Mac Davis gushed that Girelli could be the next Roy Orbison. Davis should know, having worked with some of the best musicians of his era, including the King of Rock n' Roll. Girelli is his own man as an artist, but his rich vocals and captivating phrasing evoke the cinematic romanticism of Orbison.
Today, everyone can experience Girelli's mesmerizing singing on his second single, "Everyone But Me and You," from his upcoming record, Out of This Town, to be released August 29th on Sun Records. The 12-track album features darkly seductive duets with KT Tunstall, Jaime Wyatt, and Cassandra Lewis. Out of This Town will be available on vinyl, CD, and via all streaming services.
The songs on Out of This Town have sat dormant for years, as beautiful ghost demos of what could have been. Girelli, who produced the record, remained faithful to the raw allure of the initial song sketches.
"Mac reminded me of how instinctive songwriting should be," Girelli said. "You could hear that on the demos-they had a rough feeling to very big songs. We wanted to preserve that on this album."
The album's latest single, "Everyone But Me and You," features the cosmic Americana singer-songwriter Cassandra Lewis as a sultry duet partner. The song conjures the plush longing of lovelorn ballads from the 1950s - an intimate portrayal of the late night pining of two lovers separated with a moody guitar, lush strings, and mournful pedal steel. Written solely by Davis, the track was previously released in 1994 as a duet with his longtime friend Dolly Parton on his album Will Write Songs for Food.
Girelli's nuanced production has a dramatic sweep. His vocals occupy a sacred sonic space supported by sparse acoustic guitar, and a touch of ethereal ambience. Slowly, the song ascends into an atmospheric sense of symphonic grandeur with a haze of instrumentation, featuring teardrop pedal steel, Lewis's winsome harmony vocals, elegiac strings, and moony synth textures.
"When Coyle sent me the song, I felt a familiar connection. It lives in that cinematic, symphonic country universe I love," said Lewis. "I heard echoes of Roy Orbison and Nancy Sinatra. As a huge fan of Dolly and the timeless style Sun Records continues to champion, I felt honored to put my own little cosmic flair on it. We really wanted to capture that haunted, desperate feeling you get when you don't know if someone else feels the same way you do - that lonely, hopeful liminal space. It was a smooth, collaborative process, working with Coyle and our engineer. I love that he's preserving these styles and bringing that history forward."
Out of This Town represents a once-in-a-lifetime pairing of talents, dating back over a decade ago when Girelli and Davis first got together in Los Angeles. "We sat down with a couple of cups of coffee and a bunch of guitars. We wrote our first song together in an hour of being introduced," Girelli recalled.
Davis saw a kindred spirit in Girelli, and the two shared natural personal and musical connections. Out of This Town features several songs from Davis' personal backlog rescued from a literal bag full of Davis' handwritten lyrics on yellow legal pads. The rest of the album-more than half of the songs-were co-written by Davis and Girelli. Davis died in 2020, before he and Girelli could complete this body of work together.
The album is a testament to an artistic synergy that transcends generations and genres. Girelli and Davis' pedigrees and journeys in the music industry could not be more different. What brought them together is a singular commitment to the sanctity of the song.
The British-born New York-based Girelli is a solo artist, a platinum-selling songwriter, a musical-theater composer, a record producer, a multi-instrumentalist, and the frontman for the indie-rock bands Your Vegas and The Chevin. In addition, Girelli has composed for BTS, Robin Schultz, Westlife, and co-written the record-breaking French musicals, Robin des Bois and Les Trois Mousquetaires.
Grammy-winning songwriter, artist, and actor Mac Davis was a Lubbock, Texas-born musician best known for penning Elvis Presley hits such as "In the Ghetto" and "A Little Less Conversation." Davis also had a successful solo career with songs like "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me," he hosted The Mac Davis Show, and acted in films. In 2000, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
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